LITTLE  ILLUSTRATED  BOOKS   ON 

OLD   FRENCH    FURNITURE 

IV.  FRENCH  FURNITURE  UNDER 
LOUIS  XVI  AND  THE  EMPIRE 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2007  with  funding  from 
.  Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/frenchfurnitureuOOflrich 


Four-poster  Bed,  Mahogany  and 
Brass,  with  Satin  Hangings 


LITTLE    ILLUSTRATED    BOOKS  ON 
OLD    FRENCH   FURNITURE  IV 

FRENCH  FURNITURE 
UNDER  LOUIS  XVI 
AND  THE  EMPIRE 

BY   ROGER  DE  FELICE 


Tr.    -SLATED    BY 

F.   M.   ATKINSON 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW   YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


INTRODUCTION 

In  this  volume  Empire  furniture  will  occupy 
much  less  space  than  Louis  Seize.  It  may 
perhaps  be  enough  to  say  that,  in  our  opinion, 
this  inequality  is  amply  justified  by  the  differ- 
ences in  merit,  comfort,  and  adaptableness  to  the 
needs  of  ordinary  life  that  exist  between  the 
two  styles ;  but  there  is  one  more  solid  and 
positive  reason.  The  aim  of  this  handbook, 
like  its  predecessors,  is  to  impart  a  better  know- 
ledge of  the  furniture  of  past  times,  but  most  of 
all  the  furniture  that  was  simple  and  practical, 
the  good,  honest  pieces  with  no  pretentions  to 
sham  luxuriousness,  belonging  to  the  modest 
middle  classes  or  even  the  country  folk  of  old 
France.  Now,  the  Empire  Style  never  had  time 
to  make  its  way  into  the  depths  of  the  provinces, 
where  everything  is  so  slow  to  change.  In  any 
case,  how  could  that  style,  so  learned  and  archaeo- 
logical, which  had  sprung  finished  and  complete 
from  the  brain  of  a  few  fanatical  devotees  of 
antiquity,  as  once  Minerva  sprang  in  full  panoply 
from  out  of  the  head  of  Jupiter — how  could 
that  style,  so  lacking  in  tradition,  ever  have  found 
favour  with  the  country  people  of  France  ?  How 
could  they  have  understood  it  ?  And  accordingly 
we  find  it  left  no  trace  in  the  output  of  the 
workshops  of  Provence  or  Normandy  or  Brittany, 
During  the  Revolution  and  the  Empire,  and  still 
later,  the  country  cabinet-makers,  and  those  in  the 

V 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

small  towns,  went  on  quietly  with  Louis  XVI 
styles,  which  were  often  simply  Louis  XV  hardly 
modified  at  all,  and  they  continued  this  up  to 
the  moment  when  industrial  production  on  a 
large  scale,  centralised  and  carried  out  by 
machinery,  shut,  one  by  one  for  ever,  the  little 
workshops  from  which  throughout  two  centuries 
so  much  simple  beauty  had  issued  to  spread  its 
boon  among  the  dwellings  of  the  unpretentious. 
The  Empire  Style  undoubtedly  has  its  own 
beauty ;  it  is  simple,  severe,  not  very  cordial,  but 
sometimes  imposing  in  grandeur,  and  superb  in 
its  air  ;  but  it  is  almost  always  only  the  most 
costly  and  luxurious  pieces  that  have  these 
qualities ;  their  material  must  be  supremely 
fine,  as  it  is  displayed  in  large  masses  with  little 
decoration.  The  bronzes  must  be  excellent  in 
sculpture,  since  they  often  make  the  whole  of  the 
rich  effect,  and  because  being  isolated,  as  they 
usually  are,  in  the  middle  of  large  panels  of  bare 
wood,  they  assume  an  extreme  importance,  and 
necessarily  hold  the  eye.  The  actual  composition 
of  these  metal  appliques  can  the  less  permit  of 
mediocrity,  inasmuch  as  it  often  has  to  make  up 
for  poverty  in  their  invention  and  design.  An 
Empire  piece  made  on  the  cheap,  with  too  much 
veneering,  too  little  bronze  or  bronzes  inferiorly 
chased  or  not  at  all,  gives  the  impression  of 
rubbish  made  expressly  for  catch-penny  bargain 
sales ;  indeed,  was  it  not  precisely  under  the 
Empire,  perhaps  during  the  Revolution,  that 
cheap- jack  furniture  first  came  into  being  ?     In  a 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

word,  the  ordinary  product  of  this  epoch  has 
nothing  to  call  for  any  infatuated  devotion.  A 
very  wide-awake  collector  may  still,  from  time  to 
time,  pick  up  in  the  heart  of  Paris,  and  for  a  mere 
song,  authentic  Jacobs  unrecognised  by  the  seller 
who  has  them  tucked  away  in  his  shop,  but  they 
are  becoming  rare,  and  by  the  side  of  these  lovely 
things,  pure  in  line,  sometimes  with  exquisite 
curves  and  of  superior  craftsmanship,  how  many 
dull  flat  horrors  there  are  that  have  not  even  the 
excuse  of  being  unpretentious ! 

It  has  doubtless  been  observed  that  the  Direc- 
toire  Style  has  no  place  in  the  title  of  this 
volume  nor  even  in  the  table  of  chapters.  Many 
styles  are  badly  named,  but  none  so  badly  as  this 
— if  it  even  exists  at  all.  The  government  of  the 
Directors  endured  four  years  altogether.  Did 
anyone  ever  see  a  style  spring  up  and  establish 
itself  in  so  short  a  time  ?  It  would  be  more 
correct  to  say  Revolution  Style^  for  chairs  with 
shovel  backs,*  ^  or  roll  backs,*  made  of  plain  wood, 
either  pierced  or  carved  in  weak  relief,  furniture 
decorated  with  lozenges,  daisies  and  stars ;  beds 
with  triangular  pediments ;  all  these  were  being 
made  from  1790;  we  even  find  models  in 
collections  before  the  Revolution,  such  as  that 
of  Aubert  (1788). 

This  transition  period  recalls  the  Regency  by 

the  double  character  of  the  furniture  it  produced. 

Certain  pieces  carry  on  the  direct  tradition  of 

Louis  XVI,  while  little  by  little  modifying  the 

*  The  asterisk  refers  to  the  index  at  the  end. 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

lines  to  which  cabinet-makers  had  been  faithful 
during  thirty  years ;  others  displaying  that  excess 
in  novelty  which  three  quarters  of  a  century 
earlier  had  characterised  Rocaille^  repudiate  all 
the  past  like  the  saiis-cidottes^  and  are  more  or 
less  exact  copies  of  Greco-Roman  models  ;  of 
this  kind  are  the  celebrated  pieces  from  David's 
workshop,  which  were  speedily  copied  on  every 
hand.  When  the  imperial  era  arrives,  it  will  drop 
all  the  exaggeration  and  retain  the  essence  of 
these  novelties,  give  them  more  restraint,  more 
uniformity  too,  in  a  word,  more  style,  precisely 
as  the  epoch  of  Louis  XV  had  done  for  the  some- 
what disordered  imagination  of  the  Regency. 
And  so  the  Directoire  style  is  Louis  XVI  ending 
and  also  the  birth  of  the  Empire ;  but  it  is  not 
an  independent  and  finished  style  in  itself. 

Without  any  further  preamble,  and  after 
expressing  our  profound  gratitude  to  the  owners 
of  antique  pieces,  and  to  the  keepers  of  museums 
in  Paris  and  throughout  the  country,^  to  whose 

*  Mile.  M.  de  Felice,  Mesdames  de  Flandreysy  andKahn,  Mile. 
Mouttet,  Messieurs  Marius  Bernard,  Brunschvicg,  Ceresole  and 
Briquet,  Duchene,  Ladan-Bockairy,  La  Maziere,  Mezzara  and 
Touzain,  of  Paris;  M.  Andre  Clamageran,  of  Rouen;  Madame 
Broquisse,  Messieurs  Abel  and  Louis  Jay,  of  Bordeaux ;  Madame 
Meyniac,  of  Saint  Medard  (Gironde) ;  Mile.  Marie  Jay,  Madame 
Laregnere,  Messieurs  Guillet-Dauban,  Loreilhe  and  Pascaud,  of 
Sainte-Foy-la-Grande  (Gironde)  ;  Mesdames  Colin  and  Roudier, 
of  La  Riviere-de-Prat  (Gironde);  M.  Ducros  of  Simondie 
(Dordogne) ;  and  the  Directors  of  the  Museum  of  the  Union 
centrale  des  Arts  decoratifs,  of  the  Carnavalct  Museum,  of  the 
Departmental  Museum  of  Antiquities  of  Rouen  and  of  the  Museon 
Arlaten. 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

courtesy  we  are  indebted  for  the  illustrations  in 
this  volume,  we  shall  proceed  to  set  forth  a 
summary  account  of  the  history  of  French 
furniture  during  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  first  fifteen  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth, and  next  we  shall  describe  the  charac- 
teristics and  principal  shapes  of  furniture  and 
their  possible  use  in  a  modern  interior,  first  for 
the  style  of  Louis  XVI  and  next  for  the  Empire 
Style. 


PRINCIPAL    AUTHORITIES 

Bayard,  ExMILE  :    "  Le  Style  Louis  XVI."    Paris. 
"  Le  Style  Empire."    Paris. 

Benoit,  Francois:    "L'Art  franyais   sous  la  Revolution  et 
TEmpire."    Paris,  1897. 

Champeaux,  Alfred  de:    "Le   Meuble"    (Bibliotheque   de 
rEnseignement  des  Beaux- Arts).    Paris. 

Havard,  Henri:    " Dictionnaire  de  rAmeublement  et  de  la 
Decoration."    Paris. 

Lafond,  Paul  :   "  L'Art   decoratif    et    le    Mobilier   sous    la 
Republique  et  rEmpire."    Paris,  1900. 

MOLINIER,  Emile.    "  Histoire  generale  des  Arts  appliques  a 
I'Industrie.**    Paris,  1896  (Vol.  III.). 

Seymour  de  Ricci  :  "  Le  Style  Louis  XVL"    Paris,  1913. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  y 

PART  I 
A  HISTORY  OF  THE  TWO  STYLES  I 

PART  II 

LOUIS  XVI  FURNITURE: 

I.  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  TECHNIQUE  OF 

THE  STYLE  '  37 

IL  PANELLED  FURNITURE  AND  TABLES  52 

III.  CHAIRS  AND  VARIOUS   PIECES :  A  LOUIS 

XVI  INTERIOR  68 

PART  III 

EMPIRE  FURNITURE: 

I.  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  TECHNIQEE  OF 

THE  STYLE  93 

II.  VARIOUS  ARTICLES  OF  FURNITURE  AND 

THEIR  USE  115 

INDEX-GLOSSARY  135 


xm 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIG.  PLATE 

Four-poster  Bed,  Mahogany  and  Brass,  with  Satin  Hangings 

Frontispiece 

1.  Leaf  of  a  Door  \ 

2.  Panel  of  Carved  Wood  ^  ^ 

3.  Normandy  Cupboard  in  Oak  2 

4.  Cupboard  with  Revolutionary  Emblems  3 

5.  Large  Cupboard  from  the  Gironde,  Half-moon  Shaped  4, 

6.  Mahogany  Cupboard  from  the  South-west  of  France,  with 

Mouldings  5, 

7.  Provencal  Cupboard  in  Walnut  6 

8.  Credence  Sideboard  from  Aries,  in  Walnut  7 

9.  Etagerc  '\ 

10.  Bread  Cupboard  I  8 

11.  Provencal  Vi trine  in  Walnut    J 

12.  Etagere  from  Aries,  in  Walnut  \ 

1$,  Kneading  Trough  from  A7'les,  in  Walnut    J  ^ 

14.  Vitrine  in  Mahogany  with  Brass  Ornaments  10 

15.  Corner  Cupboard  in  Marquetry,  of  different  Coloured  Woods  1 1 

16.  Drop  front  Escritoire  in  Marquetry  with  Gilt  Bronzes  12 

17.  Bonheur  du  Jour  with  Roll-front,  in  Mahogany  and  Brass  1 3 

18.  Commode  with  Two  Drawers  and  on  Legs,  in  Marquetry  14. 

19.  Commode  with  Terminal-Shaped  Legs  and  Pierced  BrassesA 

tn  Walnut  L   15 

20.  Commode  with  Flutings,  Diminished  at  the  Base,  in  Walnut) 

21.  Commode  with  Toupie  Feet,  in  Mahogany  and  Brass  16 

22.  Commode  on  Legs,  in  Mahogany  Veneer  ^ 

23.  Commode  with  "  Pieds  de  Biche,"  in  Rosewood,  Tulip-  [    17 

wood  and  Lemon-wood  ) 

24.  Provengal    Commode  with  Revolutionary    Emblems,  in 

Walnut  18 

25.  Tall  Chiffonnibrc  with   Toupie  Feet,  in  Mahogany  and 

Brass  I^ 

26.  Escritoire-commode  from  the  Gironde,  in  Elm-wood  20 

27.  Card  Table  on  Pivot,  in  Mahogany         ") 

28.  Triangular  Folding  Table,  in  Walnut   ]  *' 

29.  Bouillotte  table  in  Gilt  Wood  and  Marble  \ 

30.  Bouillotte  table  in  Mahogany,  Brass  and  Marble  j  ^ 

31.  Console  with  Two  Legs,  tn  Painted  Wood\ 

32.  Console  with  Two  Legs,  in  Walnut  j  ^^ 

33.  Console  with  Two  Legs,  in  Gilt  Wood  24 

34.  Small  Table  with  "  Pieds  de  Bichc,"  in  Walnut  {begins  ) 

ning  of  the  style)  [       2S. 

35.  Ntght  Table  in  Mahogany  and  Brass  ) 

XV 


xvi     LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIG.  PL/ 

36.  Chiffonniere  in  TiiUp-wood  and  Marble     *) 
SJ.  Chiffonniere  in  Mahogany  and  Brass        ] 

38.  Arm-chair  {end  of  the  style)  ") 

39.  Bergere  in  Wood,  Upholstered  in  Lyons  Satin  Brocade  j 

40.  Arm-chair  of  Painted  Wood,  Upholstered  in  Utrecht  Velvet 

41.  Cabriolet  Arm-chair,  Medallion  Back       \ 

42.  Cabriolet  Arnuchair  with  Fiddle  Back     ] 

43.  Cabriolet  Arm-chair  ivith  Round  Seat,  in  Walnut\ 

44.  Cabriolet  Arm-chair  in  Gilt  Wood  j 

45.  Arm-chair  with  Square  Back,  in  Walnut  ") 

46.  Arm-chair  with  Upright  Consoles,  in  Gilt  Wood  {end  of  [ 

the  style)  ) 

47.  Large  Arm-chair  covered  in  Anbusson,  Gilt  Wood 

48.  Chair  with  Quiver -shaped  Legs,  in  Walnut  ") 

49.  X-shaped  Stool  in  Gilt   Wood,  with  Square  Aubusson  > 

Cushion  ) 

50.  Bergere  in  Walnut,  Upholstered  in  Utrecht  Velvet  \ 

51.  Small  Bergere,  in  Painted  Wood  j 

52.  ''  Confessional  "  Bergere,  in  Painted  Wood 

53.  Chair  with  Flat  Baluster  Back,  in  Gilt  Wood  ) 

54.  Lyre-Backed  Chair  in  Gilt  Wood  v 

55.  Chair  wiih  Open  Back,  in  Painted  Wood  ) 

56.  57  and  58,  Mahogany  Dining  Chairs  with  Cane  Scats,  or 

Covered  in  Leather 
59,  60  and  61.  Straw-seated  Chairs  and  Arm-chair  with  Lyre 
Backs 

62.  Carved  Straw-seated  Chair  \ 

63.  Straw-seated  Arm-chair  with  Cushions  i 

64.  Straw-seated  Chair  with  Sheaf  Back  ) 

65.  Straw-seated  Chair  from  the  Dordogne,  in  Cherry-wood    ^ 

66.  Straw-seated  Arm-chair  from  the  Dordogne,  in  Cherry-  I 

wood  r 

67.  Straw-seated  Chair  from  the  Dordogne,  in  Cherry-wood    j 
^.  Straw-seated  Sofa  from  Provence  with  its  Cushions 

^,  Sofa  in  Gilt  Wood,  Upholstered  in  Broche  Silk  {end  of  the 
style) 

70.  Chaise  Longue  in  One  Piece,  Gsndola  Shape 

71.  Chaise  Longue  Brisee  in  Two  Equal  Pieces 

72.  Chaise  Longue  Brisee  in  Two  Unequal  Pieces 

73.  Chaise  Longue  Brisee  in  Three  Pieces 

74.  Four-poster  Bed  from  Lorraine,  Carved  in  the  Renaissance 

Tradition 

75.  Angel  Bed  with  ** Hat*' -shaped  Dossiers,  in  Painted  Wood 

76.  Angel  Bed  with  Arched  Dossiers,  in  Painted  Wood 

77.  Screen  in  Painted  Wood  and  Broche'  Silk    1 

78.  Screen  in  Walnut  and  Brocatelle  ] 

79.  Case  Clock  in  Oak,  Paris 


80.  Case  Clock  in  Oak  from  Lorraine 


] 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS    xvn 

FIG.  PLATE 

8l,  82  and  83.  Small  Mirrors  with  Carved  Pediment^  in  Gilt 

Wood  52 

84.  Cupboard  from  the  Gironde^  in  Walnut  (beginning  of  the 

style)  53 

85.  Drop  front  Escritoire  in  Mahogany  with  Brass  Inlay 

(beginning  of  the  style)  54 

86.  Bonheur  du  Jour  in    mahogany  with   Flat-gilt  Bronze 

Ornaments  55 

87.  Console  in  Rosewood  Inlaid  with   Brass  {beginning    of  \ 

the  style)  I  ^ 

88.  Console  with  Arched  Sides,  in  Pear-wood  (beginning  of  [  ^ 

the  style)  ) 

89.  Console  with  Caryatides,  in  Mahogany  and  Bronze  57 

90.  Slope-fronted  Bureau  with  Revolutionary  Emblem  58 

91.  Chair  with  Rolled  Back,  in  Gilt  Wood  ") 

92.  A  rm-chair  with  Open  Rolled  Back,  in  Painted  Wood     j  ^9 

93.  Arm-chair  with  Rolled  Back,  in  Painted  Wood    ")  , 

94.  Small  Bergcre,  in  Painted  Wood  j  ^" 

95.  Arm-chair  with  ''Horned  '*  Back  (beginning  of  the  style)  \  ^ 

96.  Chair  of  the  Revolutionary  Period,  in  Mahogany  )  " 

97.  Meridienne  in  Mahogany  and  Gilt  Bronze  62 

98.  Mahogany  Chaise  Longue  in  the  Antique  Style  63 

99.  Bed  with  Rolled  Dossiers,  in  Painted  Wood  (beginning  of 

the  style).     Used  as  a  Divan  64 


PART  ONE  :  A  HISTORY  OF 
THE  TWO  STYLES 

Empire  furniture  differs  widely  from;  that"  of 
the  Louis  XVI  period  ;  and  yet  the  two  styles  kre 
derived  from  the  same  principle  applied  from 
1 760  to  the  Revolution  with  a  great  deal  of  dis- 
cretion and  respect  for  the  national  taste,  and 
from  1789  to  1815  with  the  most  uncom- 
promising rigour.  This  principle  is  that  of  the 
imitation  of  Antiquity.  That  was  not  merely  a 
particular  circumstance,  limited  to  the  restricted 
circle  of  the  art  of  the  cabinet-maker,  but,  as  it 
is  called,  a  fact  of  civilisation ;  something  like — 
in  a  different  proportion — ^what  the  Renaissance 
had  been  to  France  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
This  return  to  Antiquity,  in  fact,  manifested  itself 
in  all  the  arts,  in  literature,  and  even,  a  little 
later,  in  the  ways  and  customs  of  the  French 
people.  Its  evolution  took  place  pretty  much  as 
in  the  sixteenth  century ;  the  art  of  Louis  XV, 
like  the  flamboyant  Gothic  art  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  was  an  art  that  was  purely  French  and 
modern,  and  which  owed  nothing,  with  the 
exception  of  certain  works  of  architecture,  to 
Greco- Roman  antiquity.  The  influence  of  the 
latter  at  first  transformed  it  only  little  by  little, 
with  every  kind  of  compromise  and  accommoda- 
tion, moving  on   by  regular  stages,   and  never 


i    Louis  xvi  furniture 

clashing  directly  with  the  national  character  or 
modern  habits.  The  first  French  Renaissance, 
that  of  the  reigns  of  Louis  XII,  and  of  Frangois 
the  First,  had  done  exactly  the  same.  A  little 
later,  as  in  the  time  of  Phiiibert  Delorme,  Pierre 
Lescot  and  Androuet  du  Cerceau,  the  imitation 
of  antiquity  becomes  much  more  severely  exact ; 
it  has  its  extreme  theorists,  whose  scorn  for  every- 
thing not  Greek  and  Roman  is  complete  and  un- 
mitigated ;  and  now  the  Empire  Style  is  born,  the 
exact  reverse  of  all  that  had  been  purely  French 
in  our  applied  art. 

,  The  Empire  then  is  not  a  reaction  against 
the  Louis  XVI  Style,  but  its  logical  outcome. 
The  brains  of  stiff  and  undeviating  logicians,  such 
as  were  so  numerous  in  the  revolutionary  and 
imperial  epochs,  like  David,  Percier,  Fontaine, 
coming  after  men  like  Soufflot  and  Ledoux,  were 
inevitably  bound,  with  the  republican  manners 
helping  things  on,  to  draw  this  absolute  con- 
elusion  from  the  premises  imprudently  laid  down 
thirty  years  earlier.  That  is  why  it  is  fitting 
to  set  forth  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  history 
of  two  styles  which  are  quite  distinct,  but  the 
second  of  which  prolongs  the  first  with  an 
immaculate  correctness. 

The  Louis  XV  Style  had  become  quite  out  of 
fashion,  at  any  rate  at  Paris,  many  years  before 
the  death  of  the  King  whose  name  has  been 
given  to  it ;  to  be  precise,  it  was  about  1760  that 
furniture  decoration  and  applied  arts  in  general 
were  seen   to   turn  in   a  new   direction,  while 


THEVOGUEOF  ANTIQUITY  3 

Louis  XVI  was  not  to  succeed  his  grandfather 
until  1774.  This  first  vogue  of  articles  ^'in  the 
Greek  manner,"  as  they  were  then  called,  came 
immediately  after  the  appearance — the  coinci- 
dence is  complete — of  a  whole  series  of  works  on 
Ancient  Greece  and  Ancient  Italy,  accounts  of 
travels,  collections  of  documents,  archaeological 
studies.  President  de  Brosses,  about  1740,  had 
brought  the  classical  Italian  tour  into  fashion. 
From  1749  to  1751  Madame  Pompadour's 
brother,  then  Marquis  de  Vandieres,  and  later 
Marquis  de  Marigny,  had  been  sent  by  his  sister 
on  a  mission  to  Florence,  Rome  and  Venice,  with 
the  artist  Cochin  and  the  architect  SoufHot,  fo 
form  his  taste  by  the  study  of  the  work  to 
the  Renaissance,  and  above  all  of  the  Roman 
antiquities,  before  becoming  Surintendant  des 
Beaux  Arts  to  Louis  XV.  In  1754  the  architect 
Leroy  paid  a  visit  to  the  East,  and  four  years 
after  published  the  Riiines  des  plus  beaux 
monuments  de  la  Grece.  The  learned  Comte 
de  Caylus,  a  member  of  the  Academic  des  Inscrip- 
tions and  the  Academic  de  Peinture  et  de 
Sculpture,  a  great  amateur  in  art  and  patron  of 
artists,  helped  in  the  propagation  of  the  "  taste 
for  the  antique  "  with  all  his  influence ;  he  had 
travelled  through  Turkey,  Greece,  Asia  Minor. 
His  huge  Recuezl  d* aiitiquites  egyptiennes^ 
etrusques^  grecques^  gauloises  began  to  appear 
in  1752  and  had  a  brilliant  success  of  curiosity. 
Five  years  later  came  his  Tableaux  tires 
d^Homlr^    et    de     Virgile^    a    collection    of 


4     LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

'* subjects"    to    be    treated    by    sculptors    and 
painters  tired  of  pastorals  dindi  fetes  galantes. 

But  what  struck  men's  imaginations  most  was 
the  discovery  of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii,  the 
two  dead  towns  that  were  then  beginning  to  lift 
their  shroud  of  cinders  and  lava.  Archaeology 
was  made  over  again  from  foundation  to  coping- 
stone;  it  became  all  at  once  alive,  familiar,  in- 
teresting to  the  most  frivolous  spirit,  for  what  the 
excavations  were  on  this  occasion  bringing  out 
once  more  into  the  light  of  day  was  no  longer  a 
mutilated  marble  torso,  a  broken  architrave,  a 
sarcophagus,  but  the  round  whole  of  ancient  life ; 
the  temples  and  the  theatres,  but  above  all  the 
houses  with  their  decorations,  their  furnishings, 
their  utensils,  the  whole  setting  and  apparatus  of 
daily  life.  Henceforward  we  knew  how  beds  and 
tables  were  made  in  a  Greco- Roman  town  of  the 
first  century,  mural  paintings,  lamps,  silver  and 
bronze  table  ware ;  and  accordingly  nothing  was 
more  deeply  influenced  than  the  art  of  the 
cabinet-maker  by  this  resurrection,  which  was 
immediately  made  known  to  France  by  several 
works.  As  early  as  1 748  the  Marquis  de  PHopital 
and  the  savant  Darthenay  were  publishing  a 
Memotre  historique  et  critique  sur  la  ville 
souterraine  decouverte  au  pied  du  mont 
Vesuve  ;  in  1750  President  de  Brosses  was  writing 
Lettres  stir  Petat  actucl  de  la  ville  souterraine 
d^Herculee  ;  the  next  year  it  was  a  Lettre  sur 
les  peintures  d^ Herculanum  from  Caylus  him- 
self;   and  in    1754  the    Observations  sur  les 


A   NEW   OUTLOOK  5 

antiqiittes  (T  Htrculamim  by  Cochin  and 
Bcllicard,  while  waiting  for  the  collection  of  the 
Anttquites  d^ Herculanum^  by  Sylvain  Marechal 
and  F.  A.  David. 

Thus,  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
archaeology  is  no  longer  the  speciality  of  the 
Benedictines,  the  Academie  des  Inscriptions  and 
a  handful  of  the  erudite  exchanging  obscure 
memoranda  among  one  another ;  it  interests  folk 
in  the  world  at  large,  it  is  fashionable.  But  this 
fashion,  which  might  have  been  no  more  than  a 
fleeting  caprice,  becomes  something  profound  and 
lasting,  a  whole  new  attitude  of  mind,  thanks  to 
the  potent  patronage  of  people  like  Madame  de 
Pompadour,  and  to  the  support  given  it  by  the 
"  philosophic  "  writers  with  their  customary  en- 
thusiasm. Diderot  and  Rousseau  especially, 
smitten  with  Plutarch  and  Seneca,  never  cease 
chanting  the  praises  of  antiquity,  simple,  virtuous 
antiquity,  and  enjoining  artists  like  other  citizens 
to  learn  from  it  lessons  of  dignity  and  good  con- 
duct. They  never  perceive,  these  worshippers  of 
nature,  that  the  Louis  XV  Style,  clearly  under- 
stood in  its  essence,  was  nature  itself. 

It  is  in  the  domain  of  architecture  and  in  that 
of  the  trinket  that  the  movement  of  reaction 
begins.  Architecture  is  a  grave  personage,  a 
little  heavy  to  set  in  motion;  she  does  not 
emancipate  herself  often,  and  her  vagaries  are  of 
short  duration ;  she  was  only  too  happy  to  fall 
back  under  the  easy  yoke  of  Vitruvius  and  to  find 
once  more,  with  her  beloved  triglyphs,  her  mos^ 


6      LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

restful  denticles.  And  so  mansions,  palaces, 
theatres,  churches,  are  all  ^'  in  the  Greek  manner  " ; 
the  curved  line  that  everywhere  was  supinely 
drooping  now  pulls  itself  together  and  straightens 
up.  Rocaille  is  banished  from  the  carved  stone 
work  and  from  painted  or  panelled  walls,  and  is 
replaced  by  the  classic  designs  that  had  fallen  for 
a  moment  from  favour,  which  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  had  already  borrowed  from 
the  Ancients.  "  After  the  Greek  "  also  are  chased, 
are  hammered,  are  enamelled,  the  thousand  and 
one  baubles  with  which  both  feminine  and 
masculine  dress  are  finished  off,  and  the  trinkets 
with  which,  in  this  century,  people  delight  so 
much  to  load  their  pockets  or  cover  the  small 
pieces  of  furniture  with  which  they  surround 
themselves.  It  is  natural  that  these  little  articles 
should  have  been  the  first  to  follow  the  new 
fashion.  Then  come  goldsmiths'  work,  bronzes 
for  furniture,  and  the  furniture  itself ;  first  the 
ornamentation,  and  then  the  line  and  structure. 
Painting  and  sculpture  will  bring  up  the  rear, 
towards  the  end  of  the  century,  under  the  vigorous 
impetus  of  David. 

We  have  noted,  in  the  preceding  volume,  the 
first  somewhat  hot  protest  that  was  raised  against 
the  agreeable  freedom  of  the  Louis  XV  Style,  but 
it  is  worth  returning  to  it.  It  had  appeared  first 
of  all,  unsigned,  in  the  Mercure  de  Prance^  for 
December,  1754,  under  the  title  of  a  Supplica- 
Hon  aux  Orfevres^  Ciseleiirs^  Sculpteurs  en 
bois  tour  les  appartements  et  autres^  par  unc 


A   WITTY   PROTEST         7 

SocUte  d' Artistes.  Grimm  and  Diderot  believed 
that  this  witty  sally  was  from  the  pen  of  the 
lively  Piron,  and  inserted  it,  with  strong  appro- 
bation, in  their  Correspondance  littiratre ; 
later  it  was  found  to  be  by  the  younger  Cochin, 
a  good  engraver  and  draughtsman,  artistic  pro- 
fessor and  adviser  to  Madame  de  Pompadour. 

Three  defects  above  all  are  in  this  article 
charged  against  this  poor  Louis  XV  Style  ;  the 
lack  of  good  sense  and  an  excess  of  imagination  ; 
the  abuse  of  complicated  curves ;  the  mania  for 
vegetable  ornament.  "  Be  it  most  humbly 
represented  to  these  Gentlemen  that,  whatever 
efforts  the  French  nation  may  have  made  for 
several  years  past  to  accustom  its  reason  to  the 
vagaries  of  their  imagination,  it  has  been  unable 
wholly  to  accomplish  this ;  these  Gentlemen  are 
therefore  entreated  to  be  good  enough  hence- 
forward to  observe  certain  simple  rules,  that  are 
dictated  by  good  sense,  whose  principle  we 
cannot  wholly  root  out  of  our  minds."  And 
Cochin  has  not  enough  sarcasm  for  those  lines 
that  all  want  "  to  go  on  the  spree  "  and  which 
"  make  the  prettiest  contortions  in  the  world." 
The  supplication  goes  on  :  "  The  wood  carvers 
are  accordingly  begged  to  be  so  good  as  to  give 
credence  to  the  assurance  we  give  them,  we  who 
have  no  interest  in  deceiving  them,  that  regular 
rectilinear,  square,  round  and  oval  shapes  give  a 
decoration  as  rich  as  all  their  inventions ;  that  as 
their  correct  execution  is  more  difficult  than  that 
of  all  these  herbages,  bats'  wings  and  other  sorry 


8      LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

trifles  that  are  now  customary,  it  will  do  more 
honour  to  their  talent."  The  flowery  elegance 
of  the  ornaments,  all  the  ingenious  inventions 
of  the  designers  who  venture  to  "substitute 
herbages  and  other  paltry  prettinesses  for  the 
modillions,  the  denticles  and  other  ornaments 
invented  by  men  who  knew  much  more  about  it 
than  they  do,"  find  no  mercy  from  this  pitiless 
censor.  "  If  we  are  asking  for  too  many  things 
at  once,  let  them  grant  us  at  least  one  favour, 
that  henceforth  the  principal  moulding,  which 
they  ordinarily  torment  and  cojQ-tort,  shall  be 
and  shall  remain  straight,  conformably  to  the 
principles  of  good  architecture  ;  we  will  then 
consent  that  they  shall  make  their  ornaments 
writhe  around  and  over  it  as  much  as  seems 
good  to  them  ;  we  shall  count  ourselves  not  so 
unlucky,  since  any  man  of  good  taste  into  whose 
hands  such  an  apartment  may  come,  will  be  able 
with  a  mere  chisel  to  knock  away  all  these 
nostrums,  and  find  once  more  the  simple 
moulding  that  will  provide  him  with  a  sober 
decoration  from  which  his  reason  will  not  suffer." 
In  conclusion  :  "With  regard  to  them,  it  only 
remains  for  us  to  sigh  in  secret  and  to  wait  until, 
their  invention  being  exhausted,  they  themselves 
grow  tired  of  it.  It  appears  that  this  time  is 
at  hand,  for  they  do  nothing  now  but  repeat 
themselves,  and  we  have  grounds  for  hoping 
that  the  desire  to  do  something  novel  will 
bring  back  the  ancient  architecture." 
Ten  years  later.  Cochin's  wish  was  granted ; 


PSEUDO-HELLENISM       9 

under  the  date  of  1764,  we  may  read  in  the 
Memozres  Secrets  of  Bachaumont  :  ^'  The  mania 
of  the  present  day  is  to  make  everything  after 
the  Greek"  ;  and  it  is  also  in  1764,  ten  years 
before  the  arrival  of  Louis  XVI,  that  i* Amateur 
v^as  acted,  a  comedy  by  a  certain  N.  T.  Barthe, 
one  of  whose  dramatis personce  said: 

*'  fortunately  for  us 
The  fashion  is  all  for  the  Greek :  our  furniture,  our  jewels, 

Fabrics,  head-dress,  equipage, 
Everything  is  Greek,  except  our  souls  .  •  ." 

In  very  truth  their  souls  were  hardly  Greek, 
nor  their  way  of  living,  nor  their  costumes,  and 
the  furniture  artists  of  the  time  had  the  good 
taste  and  the  good  sense  to  bear  the  fact  in 
mind ;  progressively,  and  by  slight  touches,  they 
modified  the  articles  of  furniture  which  the 
preceding  epoch  had  created,  so  well  adapted 
for  modern  life.  First  of  all  it  was  the  bronzes 
and  the  carved  and  inlaid  decorations  that 
borrowed  their  elements  from  ancient  architec- 
ture (or  what  was  so  called),  the  form  remaining 
untouched.  We  can  see,  for  example,  armchairs 
of  the  transition  type,  all  of  whose  lines  have 
the  sinuosities  of  the  Louis  XV  Style,  but  which  are 
ornamented  with  rangs  de  piastres  or  with  en^ 
trelacSy  tables  with  crooked  legs  {pieds  de  biche)y 
whose  festooned  frame  is  decorated  with  flutings 
(Fig.  34).  Many  provincial  workshops  never  got 
beyond  this  stage,  even  under  the  Empire. 

Afterwards  it  is  the  lines  of  construction  that 
are  gradually  transformed}   the  curves  become 


7 


lo    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

simplified,  decrease  or  stiffen  one  after  the  other 
into  rectitude.  An  arm-chair  still  has  a  back 
shaped  like  a  fiddle  (Fig.  42),  but  its  legs, 
turned  and  fluted,  are  rigid  and  square  with  the 
frame  of  the  seat.  A  commode  (Fig.  22)  still 
has  its  legs  slightly  curved,  but  its  body  is 
already  rectangular  both  in  section  and  elevation. 
The  transition  period,  whose  hybrid  character 
has  often  much  of  grace,  mainly  comes  to  an  end 
when  that  Dauphin  and  Dauphiness,  who 
between  them  cannot  count  up  forty  years, 
become  king  and  queen  of  France,  acclaimed  by 
the  love  and  the  hope  of  the  whole  nation. 

During  about  fifteen  years  (1770- 1785)  evolu- 
tion remains  practically  at  a  standstill,  and  the 
differences  that  can  be  noted,  in  style,  between 
this  and  that  type  of  article,  more  or  less  recti- 
linear in  design,  with  ornament  more  florid  or 
more  architec-ural,  are  not  differences  due  to  their 
period,  but  are  related  rather  to  the  diversity  of 
temperament  in  the  artists  or  divergence  of  taste 
in  those  for  whom  the  pieces  were  intended. 

The  first  of  the  great-cabinet  makers  of  the 
Louis  XVI  period  in  point  of  date  and,  without 
any  dispute,  in  point  of  talent,  is  Jean  Henri 
Riesener,  who  after  having  started,  as  an  appren- 
tice, by  making  ''Louis  Quinze "  in  Oeben's 
workshop,  was  to  live  long  enough  to  see  the 
Empire  Style  triumphant  and  his  own  produc- 
tions disdained.  This  great  artist,  whose  works 
are  the  very  flower  of  French  taste  in  the  age 
when  it  was  purest,  was  nevertheless  a  foreigner, 


RIESENER   THE   ARTIST    ii 

marvellously  assimilated,  it  is  true,  but  by  birth 
he  was  German.  At  the  death  of  Oeben,  even 
before  he  had  been  received  as  maitre  ebentste^ 
he  took  over  the  management  of  his  workshop 
and  then  married  his  widow.  He  became  known 
by  finishing  the  orders  given  to  his  former 
employer  by  the  royal  Garde-Meuble,  among 
other  items,  the  famous  bureau  of  King  Louis  XV, 
now  in  the  Louvre ;  and  in  the  height  of  the 
Revolution,  in  1791,  he  delivered  to  Marie 
Antoinette  the  escritoire  and  the  commode  that 
once  were  the  gems  of  the  celebrated  Hamilton 
Collection,  and  are  now  the  gems  of  that  belong- 
ing to  Mr.  W.  K.  Vanderbilt. 

It  might  be  said  that  Riesener  unites  all  the 
qualities  of  the  style  with  which  we  are  at  present 
concerned.  His  works  are,  in  their  composition 
as  a  whole,  ample,  full  of  grandeur,  proportioned 
to  perfection,  architectural  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word,  and  withal  always  graceful  and  supple 
in  line ;  as  for  their  ornament,  whether  it  be 
marquetry  or  chased  bronze,  it  is  exquisite,  now 
abundant  and  flowery  as  a  rose  garden  in  May — 
Marie  Antoinette  adored  roses,  and  Riesener 
constantly  worked  for  her — ^and  now  displaying  a 
masculine  soberness  which  is  of  the  very  highest 
taste.  With  him  the  outline  is  never  arid; 
according  to  the  excellent  custom  of  the  time  of 
Louis  XV  he  almost  invariably  adorned  the  sharp 
edges  of  his  pieces  with  beaded  or  corded  mould- 
ing in  bronze  ormolu  gilt ;  he  understood  how 
to  temper  with  impeccable  touch  the  deliberate 


12    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

rigidity  of  the  "  Greek "  Style  by  means  of  a 
supple  twining  branch  boldly  bestriding  a  right 
line,  or  an  acanthus  leaf  full  of  sap  and  life  placed 
at  the  right  spot.  No  one  ever  had  to  a  higher 
degree  the  art  of  interpreting  into  elegance  the 
elements  purveyed  by  antiquity,  and  it  is  note- 
v^orthy  that  the  older  he  became  the  more 
he  multiplied  dainty  garlands,  showers  of  blossoms, 
and  draperies  with  soft  flowing  curves ;  it  might 
have  been  said  that  by  redoubling  French  grace 
he  was  making  his  protest  against  the  triumphant 
antiquomania  of  the  time.  He  even  remained 
faithful — which  in  1 791  was,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  an  act  of  defiance — ^to  panels  of  Chinese 
lacquer. 

"  Martin  Carlin  is  also  an  excellent  representative 
of  this  pleasant  Louis  XVI  manner,  which  is  quite 
at  its  ease  with  antiquity;  he  also  readily  em- 
ployed old  black  and  gold  lacquer  ;  his  delicate 
bronzes,  deeply  chased,  perhaps  a  trifle  affected, 
were  frequently  tiny  garlands  embossed  upon  the 
mouldings  of  the  framework,  or  slender,  elegant 
balusters  adorning  the  angles.  He  loved  the 
striking  contrast  of  gilded  bronzes  upon  polished 
ebony,  dark  and  shimmering  at  the  same  time, 
which  had  recovered  its  bygone  favour. 

We  will  be  able  to  group  together  the  cabinet- 
makers of  severer  taste,  of  heavier  taste  too,  who 
sacrified  more  to  sacrosanct  antiquity,  banished 
flowers — too  frivolous ;  and  knots  of  ribbon — too 
coquettish ;  and  marquetry,  whose  fault  is  that 
it  was  never  (perhaps)  known  to  the  Ancients,  to 


ROENTGEN  &  MARQUETRY  13 

keep  all  their  affection  for  stiff  lines,  large  uniform 
unbroken  surfaces,  and  by  way  of  decoration  for 
the  ovolos,  ogees,  modillions,  flutings  and  cablings 
of  the  Roman  architects.  Here  will  take  his 
place  Jean-Franfois  Lcleu,  who  was  the  first  to 
inlay  with  thin  brass  the  grooves  of  his  flutings 
and  to  put  metal  rings  round  his  pilasters ;  Claude 
Charles  Saunier,  an  elegant  artist  in  marquetry 
at  the  outset  of  his  career,  but  towards  the  end  a 
great  upholder  of  the  antique  genre^  whose  man- 
ner is  a  trifle  poverty  stricken;  Etienne  Avril, 
whose  pieces,  vaguely  English  in  appearance,  are 
square,  geometrical,  with  sharp  edges,  and  panels 
of  plain  uniform  veneer,  framed  in  very  narrow 
mouldings  of  gilt  bronze. 

David  Roentgen — he  was  generally  called  David  ,  ^ 
— was  a  German  like  Riesener,  but  much  less  ^ 
Frenchified  than  he ;  his  principal  workshop  was 
at  Neuwied,  and  he  only  had  a  depot  at  Paris, 
where  he  came  at  frequent  intervals  to  pick  up 
his  orders,  to  procure  designs  and  make  enquiries 
as  to  the  fashions.  For  the  general  shape  of  his 
pieces,  which  was  extremely  simple,  as  well  as 
their  inconspicuous  and  almost  rudimentary 
bronzes,  he  would  be  classed  with  the  makers  of 
whom  we  have  just  spoken,  without  equalling 
them  ;  but  he  is  peerless  for  his  marquetry.  The 
art  of  making  paintings  with  pieces  of  wood 
chosen  for  their  various  colours  had,  it  appeared, 
no  advance  to  make  after  the  epoch  of  Louis  XV ; 
and  yet  Roentgen  managed  to  give  to  his  persons, 
emblems  or  flowers,  shadows  much  more  satisfy- 


V 


14    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

ing  than  those  that  were  obtained  by  burning  or 
engraving  the  wood.  He  used  exceedingly  small 
pieces  of  darker  woods  admirably  arranged,  some- 
what in  the  manner  of  the  small  stone  mosaics  of 
Florence,  which  gave  to  his  marquetry  a  quite 
novel  depth  and  vividness.  The  decorations  of 
his  panels  were  most  often  composed  of  a  subject 
of  flowers,  boldly  treated  and  only  occupying  the 
centre  of  the  expanse  of  satin-wood,  on  which 
they  stood  out  strongly.  They  were  accompanied 
by  the  traditional  ribbons,  but  treated  in  a  suffi- 
ciently personal  and  original  way;  sometimes 
stretched  out  in  lozenges  to  make  a  frame ;  some- 
times carelessly  knotted,  they  threw  their  ends 
boldly  across  the  background ;  again  they  fastened 
roses,  anemones,  lilies,  narcissi,  to  a  Bacchante's 
thyrsus,  terminating  in  its  fir  cone. 

As  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI  draws  near  its 
catastrophe  the  taste  for  the  antique  becomes 
more  exacting  and  spreads  more  and  more. 
Choiseul-Gouffier,  the  Ambassador  to  Constanti- 
nople and  a  traveller  in  the  East,  publishes  the 
first  volume  of  his  Grece  Ptttoresque.  The 
Italianate  German,  Joachim  Winckelmann,  Presi- 
dent des  Antiquites  in  Rome,  Librarian  at  the 
Vatican,  writes  his  Htstotre  de  L^Art  chez  Its 
Anciens^  translated  in  1781,  his  Reflexions  sur 
r imitation  des  ouvrages grecs  dans  lapeinture 
et  la  sculpture^  and  other  works,  whose  influence 
in  France  is  almost  as  great  as  that  of  the  collec- 
tions of  engravings  by  the  two  Venetians,  Piranesi 
the  father  and  Piranesi  the  son,  who  engrave  with 


THE  YOUNGER  ANACHARSIS   15 

indefatigable  needle  and  burin  the  antiquities  of 
Rome  and  Herculaneum.  The  Piranesis  are 
also  inventors  of  decorations,  and  the  collection  of 
"  Various  Ways  of  Ornamenting  Chimney-pieces 
and  all  other  parts  of  Buildings  after  Egyptian, 
Etruscan,  Greek  and  Roman  Architecture/'  is  a 
source  from  which  architects,  decorators,  cabinet- 
makers, goldsmiths,  are  to  draw  for  fifty  years. 
Let  us  note  the  appearance  of  Egypt  on  the 
stage  with  its  sphinxes,  its  sarcophagi,  its  gods 
with  the  head  of  a  hawk  or  a  jackal ;  their  em- 
ployment in  French  decorative  art  dates  from 
long  before  the  campaign  of  Egypt.  The  Hamil- 
ton collection  of  Greco-Etruscan  ceramics  is 
described  and  reproduced  in  the  work  of  Han- 
carville,  which  supplied  inspiration  to  all  the 
painters'  studios. 

These  costly  folios  were  produced  only  for  a 
chosen  few,  archaeologists,  amateurs  and  artists. 
Antiquity  finds  also  numerous  popular  exponents, 
the  most  celebrated  of  whom  is  the  Abbe 
Barthelemy,  with  his  famous  Voyage  du  Jeime 
Anacharsts^  which  had  an  enormous  success  and 
enabled  some  notions  as  to  the  public  and  private 
life  of  the  Greeks  to  penetrate  to  what  is  ca  led 
the  "great  public" — the  "man  in  the  street." 
In  all  this  still  more  attention  was  paid  to  Athens 
than  to  Rome,  and  accordingly  Hellenic  art 
began  to  be  better  known  and  vaguely  distin- 
guished from  Roman  art. 

And  now  literature  joins  in  the  game.  Since 
Montesquieu,  "beauteous  antiquity"  had  been 


i6    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

forgotten  indeed,  once  so  greatly  admired,  though 
for  very  different  reasons,  by  the  poets  of  the 
Pleiade,  then  by  the  great  sixteenth  century 
classicists.  Now  it  was  veritably  to  be  dis- 
covered anew,  especially  in  its  artistic  and,  so  to 
speak,  plastic  beauty.  This  was  the  aspect  by 
which  it  charmed  the  sentimental  epicureans 
of  the  end  of  the  century.  Almost  everywhere 
storytellers  and  poets  strove  to  evoke  before  the 
eyes  of  their  readers  groups  at  the  same  time 
sculpturesque  and  emotional,  visibly  inspired  by 
Greco-Roman  art ;  Paul  et  Virginic  is  full  of 
sujets  de  pendiile — ^themes  for  ornamental  clocks 
— in  the  purest  style  of  late  Louis  XVI  or  the 
Empire.  But  the  most  perfect  example  of  this 
neo- Alexandrian  rather  than  neo- Attic  literature, 
a  little  sugary,  a  trifle  mannered,  after  the  manner  * 
of  Clodion  or  Canova,  are  the  antique  poems  of 
Andre  Chenier,  le  jeune  Malade^  la  Jeunt 
Tarentine^  V Aveugle,  Even  the  great  Chateau- 
briand himself  will  yet  offer  sacrifice  many  a  time 
to  this  taste  in  Atala  and  in  les  Martyres. 

The  same  applies  to  painting.  Long  before 
the  Revolution  broke  out  David  had  acquired 
his  icy,  rigid,  grand  manner ;  the  Oath  of  the 
Horaiiiy  exhibited  in  the  Salon  of  1785,  four 
years  after  his  Belisarius^  marked  him  out  as 
the  chief  of  the  French  school.  Henceforth 
this  new  Le  Brun,  as  despotic  and  narrow  in  idea 
as  the  other,  lays  upon  the  unfortunate  French 
painters  the  brutal  injunction  to  copy  ''  antiquity 
in  the  raw."     In  this  same  Salon  of  1785,  whiclx 


EMPIRE   STYLE  17 

IS  a  pivotal  date,  there  was  nothing  else  but 
the  Devotion  of  Alcestis,  Priam's  Return  with 
the  Body  of  Hector,  Mucias  Scaevolas  burning 
their  hands,  and  other  illustiations  of  Homer  or 
Livy. 

In  monumental  architecture  the  Greek  tri- 
umphs, even  the  archaic  Greek.  Much  is  talked 
about  the  temples  of  Selinus  and  Paestum  and 
the  "  Paestum  Style,"  in  other  words,  the  heaviest 
of  primitive  Doric  has  its  fanatical  devotees. 
Who  could  believe  it  ?  It  is  not  under 
Napoleon  the  First,  but  absolutely  beginning 
from  1780  that  the  gloomy  convent  of  the 
Capucins  d'Antin  was  built  (now  the  Lycee 
Condorcet).  Private  architecture  was  naturally 
less  offensive  in  anachronism ;  but  the  Hotel  de 
*Salm  (the  Palace  of  the  Legion  of  Honour)  was 
constructed  by  Rousseau  in  a  style  that  was 
already  different,  for  example,  from  that  of 
Bagatelle ;  it  was  almost  the  Empire  Style.  And 
as  much  might  be  said  for  the  Hotel  d'Osmont, 
in  the  Rue  Basse  du  Rempart,  of  the  Hotel  de 
Soubise,  in  the  Rue  de  I'Arcade,  and  other  works 
of  Cellerier,  Brongniart  or  Chalgrin. 

Internal  decoration  was  changing  at  the  same 
time.  The  boudoir  of  Marie- Antoinette  at 
Fontainebleau  already  has  the  little  octagonal 
panels,  with  camaieuXy  the  Greek  palm  leaf 
ornaments,  the  slender  rinceattx  out  of  which 
the  characteristics  of  the  Directoire  Style  are 
fashioned.  The  little  mansion  of  pretty  Mile. 
d'Hervieux    in    the    Rue     Chantereine,    which 


iSLOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

Brongnlart  had  built  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign, 
then  passed  for  the  last  word  of  the  most  refined 
luxury ;  the  ^'  belle  impure ''  has  it  newly  de- 
corated from  top  to  bottom  in  the  Roman  Style. 
And  the  sleeping  chamber  of  the  Comte  d'Artois 
represents  ^'the  tent  of  the  God  Mars,"  as  if 
Percier  and  Fontaine  had  already  arrived 

Many  of  the  pieces  belonging  to  the  last  years 
of  the  reign  depart  from  the  pure  Louis  XVI 
type.  On  the  one  hand,  and  this  is  especially 
true  of  the  most  luxurious  pieces,  tables  or 
commodes  of  state  meant  for  the  royal  apartments, 
a  striking  resemblance  can  be  found  to  the  decor- 
ative spaciousness  of  the  Louis  XIV  Style.  That 
is  quite  natural;  the  principle  (borrowed  from 
decorative  motifs  in  ancient  architecture,  but 
without  copying  the  general  Greek  or  Roman 
forms)  is  in  the  main  the  same  a  century  earlier. 
When  a  cabinet-maker,  round  about  1785,  fears 
to  *' sacrifice  to  the  Graces"  overmuch,  and 
proposes  to  make  pieces  that  shall  be  at  the 
same  time  rich  and  severe  and  majestic,  in  a 
word,  royal,  he  inevitably  meets  his  predecessors 
of  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century.  There 
are  at  Fontainebleau  and  at  Versailles  certain 
clock-stands  of  gilt  wood,  certain  console  tables 
that,  if  one  did  not  know  their  true  history,  one 
might  fancy  were  made  for  the  Roi-Soleil, 
although  they  were  in  reality  made  for  Louis 
XVI.  Besides,  at  this  period,  the  Louis  XIV 
Style  was  frankly  copied;  the  cabinet-makers 
Montigny,    Levasseur,    Severin,    had   for  their 


GUILLAUME  BENEMAN   19 

special  line  the  copying  or  imitation  of  the 
sumptuous  pieces  of  Andre-Charles  BouUe  in  inlay 
of  ebony,  shell,  and  metals. 

From  these  new  characteristics  we  will  be  able 
to  distinguish  another  family  of  cabinet-makers, 
as  different  from  Riesener  and  Carlin  as  Leleu, 
Saunier  or  Avril ;  their  chief  will  incontestably 
be  Guillaume  Bcneman,  who  is  represented  in 
the  Louvre,  at  Fontainebleau,  and  in  the  Wallace 
Collection,  by  commodes  or  under  cupboards  of 
a  truly  monumental  kind.  They  are  made  of 
mahogany  decorated  with  bronzes,  and  not  in 
marquetry,  but  they  make  one  think  of  the  best 
works  of  BouUe  by  the  grandeur  of  their  style. 
The  ornamental  part  of  their  facade  is  nearly 
always  a  great  elliptical  arch,  shaped  like  a  basket 
handle,  which  takes  up  the  whole  width  and 
enframes  a  trophy  of  arms,  a  medallion  in  biscuit 
ware  flanked  by  rtnceaux ;  the  copner  uprights 
are  Corinthian  pilasters,  or  sheaves  of  lances, 
and  the  feet  toupie-shaped  or  lions'  paws. 
The  celebrated  jewel  cupboard  of  Marie  An- 
toinette, by  Schwerdfeger,  with  its  polychrome 
ornamentation,  somewhat  overdone,  and  its  legs 
terminating  somewhat  meanly,  is  decidedly  in- 
ferior both  to  the  maker's  reputation  and  to  the 
work  of  Beneman. 

Other  pieces  belonging  to  this  period,  instead 
of  recaUing  the  style  of  Louis  XIV,  herald  that 
of  the  Revolution  and  the  Empire ;  one  may 
even  say  that  they  belong  to  it  already.  Certain 
tables  have  legs  in  the  form  of  termini  whose 


20    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

top  part  is  a  sphinx's  head  ;  others  are  carried 
by  those  bizarre  legs,  copied  from  certain 
Pompeiian  tripods,  known  as  ^' pteds  de  biche 
surmounted  by  caryatides,"  and  showing  plainly 
to  what  extent  this  generation  lacked  any  critical 
sense  in  its  admiration  for  antiquity.  Equally  dis- 
pleasing to  the  reason  as  to  the  eye,  they  arc  com- 
pounded of  two  parts  treated  on  a  totally  different 
scale ;  a  deer's  leg,  the  haunch  ornamented  with 
a  human  head  surrounded  with  rinceaux^  is 
cut  clean  across,  and  this  cross-section  supports  a 
little  seated^sphinx,  which  itself  carries  on  its  head' 
and  its  uplifted  wings  the  frame  of  the  table. 

The  collections  of  the  designers  of  furniture 
are  full  of  these  purely  antique  models  from 
before  1789:  those  of  Lalonde,  for  instance,  of 
Dugourc,  of  Aubert.  .  .  .  Besides  the  Roman 
tripods,  we  see  in  them  seats  with  roll  backs  and 
legs  curving  outwards  like  those  of  a  cathedra^ 
and  X-shapcd  fstools  that  are  precisely  curule 
chairs.  The  cabinet-maker  in  whom  the  work 
of  these  innovators  is  summed  up  is  Adam 
Weisweiler,  who  makes  great  use,  by  way  of 
supports,  of  elegant  metal  caryatides,  and  makes 
athentennes  *  "  in  the  Herculanean  Style,"  while 
at  the  same  time  admitting  strange  compromises, 
as  in  this  ebony  commode  in  which  he  has  com- 
bined a  pediment  turned  upside  down,  acroteria, 
and  palm  leaf  ornaments  come  down  in  direct 
line  from  a  Grecian  tomb,  with  wonderful  panels 
of  old  Japanese  black  and  gold  lacquer. 

To   sum   up,  the   Empire    Style  was  formed 


NE.W   IDEAS  21 

under  Louis  XVI,  as  the  Louis  XVI  Style  was 
formed  under  Louis  XV,  and  the  Louis  XV  Style 
under  Louis  XIV  and  the  Regency ;  the  nomen- 
clature of  our  styles  invariably  lags  behind  their 
chronology. 

The  Revolution  then  did  not,  even  in  Paris," 
bring  a  rapid  change  in  the  fashion  of  our 
ancestors'  furnishing.  It  could  not  be,  as  the 
Goncourt  brothers  accused  it  of  being,  the  cause 
of  a  movement  that  had  begun  several  years 
earlier ;  but  it  helped  that  movement  and 
hastened  it  in  every  way,  because  it  was  going 
precisely  in  the  direction  that  was  necessary  to 
satisfy  the  tastes  of  the  Revolutionary  generation, 
which  enthusiastically  admired  the  ancient 
republics,  and  which  affected  a  severe  austerity 
in  the  manner  of  Lycurgus  and  Cato. 

From  the  time  of  the  Constituent  Assembly, 
new  ideas  sweep  over  decoration  and  furniture 
as  over  every  department  of  art.  Everyone 
makes  Greek  pieces,  more  and  more  Greek ;  but 
at  the  same  time  pieces  that  are  still  altogether 
Louis  XVI  are  loaded  with  revolutionary  emblems 
(Figs.  4  and  24).  A  certain  "  Sieur  Boucher,  a 
merchant  upholsterer,  well  known,"  according  to 
his  own  modest  statement,  "  for  the  purity  of  his 
taste  in  matters  of  furnishing,"  advertises  in  1790, 
in  the  fournal  de  la  Mode  et  du  Gout^  ou 
Amusements  du  Salon  et  de  la  Toilette^  that 
he  has  just  ^'  enriched  his  emporium  with  various 
articles  in  harmony  with  the  circumstances  of  the 


22    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

day."  These  are,  for  example,  ^^ patriotic  beds 
with  the  symbols  of  liberty ;  in  place  of  plumes 
there  are  bonnets  on  the  end  of  sheaves  of  lances, 
which  form  the  bed  posts ;  they  represent  the 
triumphal  arch  erected  on  the  Champ  de  Mars 
on  the  day  of  the  Federation."  Everywhere 
a  disorded  taste  for  allegories  runs  wild  :  it  is 
nothing  but  fasces  (strength  as  the  result  of 
union)  ;  Phrygian  caps  (Liberty  recovered)  ; 
spirit  levels  (equality) ;  pikes  (the  freedom  of 
man) ;  oaken  boughs  (social  virtues) ;  triangles 
with  an  eye  in  the  middle  (reason)  ;  clasped 
hands  (fraternity) ;  tables  of  the  law,  etc.,  without 
counting  the  ^'  Captures  of  the  Bastille  "  carved 
on  so  many  cupboards  (Fig,  4). 

But  people  tire  quickly  enough  of  these 
emblems.  Three  years  go  by  (1792- 1795)  during 
which  the  French  industry,  which  lately  turned 
out  luxurious  furniture  for  the  whole  of  Europe 
(in  1789  it  exported  to  the  value  of  four  million 
livres),  is  reduced  by  reason  of  the  social  agony, 
the  foreign  war,  and  the  insurrection  in  the  west, 
to  an  almost  complete  standstill.  This  is  the 
moment!  when  the  goldsmith  Odiot  shuts  his 
shop  and  fastens  up  on  the  door  the  following 
notice :  "  Placed  in  the  safe  keeping  of  the 
public,  as  the  head  of  this  house  is  in  the  army 
fighting  against  the  enemies  of  his  country." 
The  few  pieces  now  turned  out  by  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Antoine,  and  all  those  that  will  hereafter 
be  turned  out — whilst  the  provincial  workshops 
go  on  making  Louis  XVI  without  wavering — 


ETRUSCAN    BROWN       23 

are  made  in  the  antique  style.  Here  is  the 
description  of  an  ''  antique  arm-chair  "  at  this 
precise  moment  :  "  the  wood  painted  in  grey 
white  and  varnished ;  the  feet  of  solid  brass, 
highly  polished ;  the  back  roll-shaped ;  the  seat 
covered  in  silk  with  an  arabesque  design  on  a 
background  of  b/eu  d^oeil  with  a  rosace  in  the 
centre  on  an  Etruscan  brown  ground,  and  red 
ornaments."  What  is  an  Etruscan  chair  ?  Here 
you  are :  "  a  chair  in  mahogany,  the  back  made 
of  three  trumpets  and  a  lyre  bound  together ; 
the  cushion  of  brown  silk  stuff  with  a  green 
rosace  in  the  centre  with  yellow  ornaments ; 
antique  feet  of  solid  brass,  highly  polished." 
These  feet,  these  '^ genuine  antique  feet"  are 
simply  toupie-shaped,  broad  and  splayed  out. 
As  for  the  "  Etruscan  brown  "  (a  hideous  chocolate 
brown,  vulgar  and  dull),  it  is  a  colour  "  in  a  new 
taste,"  with  which  everyone  is  at  present  much 
concerned  in  the  upholsterers'  world  :  "  the 
happy  blending  " — it  is  still  the  Journal  de  la 
Mode  etdu  Gout  speaking — "  the  happy  blending 
of  several  colours  upon  a  very  deep  brown,  which 
forms  what  is  called  the  Etruscan  Style,  sets  off 
materials  in  a  way  that  we  had  never  had  any 
idea  of  till  now."  How  far  we  are,  with  these 
green  and  yellow  rosaces  on  an  Etruscan  brown 
ground,  from  those  harmonies  discreet  and  gay 
at  the  same  time,  that  smart  and  elegant  mixture 
of  fresh  bright  hues  the  tapestry-weavers  and  the 
upholsterers  of  yore  knew  the  secret  of  composing! 
So  now  it  is  that  pieces  no  longer  decorated 


24    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

with  antique  ornaments,  but  copied  exactly  from 
those  that  the  excavations  of  Pompeii  have 
brought  to  light,  or  that  have  been  disclosed  to  us 
from  ancient  vases  and  bas-reliefs,  are  sanctioned 
by  fashion  ;  still  better,  this  is  the  official  style 
of  the  Republic,  and  to  adopt  it  is  to  display 
civic  virtue,  just  like  giving  up  wearing  breeches 
and  powder,  like  wearing  the  tricolour  cockade, 
like  calling  your  son  Astyanax-Scaevola,  as  the 
painter  Jean  Bosio  actually  did.  David  did  more 
than  anyone  else  to  impose  this  new  style ;  he 
had  power  to  do  it,  being  the  important  person 
he  was  under  the  Terror.  The  antique  pieces  in 
his  studio,  which  he  has  brought  into  nearly  all 
his  historical  pictures,  were  so  celebrated  that 
they  deserve  a  brief  mention.  They  had  been 
made,  in  1789  or  1790,  by  old  Georges  Jacob, 
the  head  of  the  dynasty,  from  designs  by  David 
himself  and  by  his  pupil  Moreau.  They  were 
mahogany  chairs,  a  kind  of  large  arm-chair  with 
an  all  mahogany  back,  very  singular  in  appearance, 
round  as  a  tower  and  ornamented  with  bronzes, 
a  curule  chair  whose  Xes  ended  in  lions'  heads 
and  lions'  paws  ;  and  that  day-bed  of  the  purest 
lines,  on  which  the  painter  stretched  out  the 
charming  person  of  Madame  Recamier.  These 
chairs  were  furnished  with  cushions  and  draperies 
in  red  woollen  stuff  with  palm  designs  in  black  : 
David  had  naively  reproduced  in  them  the 
colours  of  Greek  vases  of  red  earthenware  with 
black  figures,  from  which,  when  designing  them, 
he  had  taken  his  inspiration. 


SUPPRESSION  OF  GUILDS    25 

It  was  David  too  who  had  the  order  for  the 
furniture  for  the  Convention  given  to  Georges 
Jacob  and  two  young  architects  and  designers, 
then  quite  unknown  and  very  poor,  already 
partners  for  life,  and  for  whom  this  affair  was 
the  beginning  of  fortune :  Pierre  Fontaine  and 
Charles  Percier.  Soon  after  the  production  of 
this  furniture  Georges  Jacob  retired  from  business, 
leaving  the  management  of  the  huge  workshop  in 
the  Rue  Meslay,  or  Meslee,  to  his  sons,  the  third 
one  of  whom,  Francois  Honore,  was  destined, 
under  the  name  of  Jacob  Desmalter,  to  eclipse 
the  others  and  become  the  king  of  cabinet-makers 
in  the  Imperial  epoch. 

The  Guilds,  masterships,  wardenships  were  all, 
as  is  well  known,  suppressed  by  the  Revolution. 
From  the  social  point  of  view  this  was  un- 
doubtedly a  point  of  progress ;  from  the  technical 
point  of  view  also,  perhaps,  in  certain  industries 
that  heretofore  had  been  matters  of  routine ;  but 
certainly  not  from  the  artistic  point  of  view.  To 
suppress  all  this  strict  body  of  rules  and  regula- 
tions governing  the  ancient  trade  corporations 
was  to  suppress  their  traditions,  the  careful, 
thorough  training  of  the  craftsmen,  and  certain 
rules  of  professional  honour.  Marat  himself  had 
expressed  fears  in  the  Ami du  Peuple:  "With 
this  doing  away  of  all  novitiate,  the  workers  no 
longer  take  any  trouble  about  solidity  and  finish, 
work  is  rushed,  dashed  off.  ...  I  do  not  know 
whether  I  am  mistaken  or  not,  but  I  should  not 
be  surprised  if  in  twenty  years  time  it  will  be 


5> 


26    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

impossible  to  find  a  single  workman  in  Paris  who 
knows  how  to  make  a  hat  or  a  pair  shoes  " 
Marat's  fears  were  excessive  with  regard  to  hats 
and  shoes  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  artistic  industries 
such  as  furniture-making  started  to  decline, 
beginning  with  this  reform,  except  for  the 
magnificent  furniture  de  luxe  made  under  the 
Empire — and  in  any  case  made  by  workmen  who 
had  been  trained  and  fashioned  in  the  ancient 
corporations. 

Another  reason  for  this  decadence  is  the  change 
in  the  clientele  of  cabinet-makers  and  joiners. 
As  soon  as  the  Terror  was  over  the  various  in- 
dustries returned  to  life,  orders  flowed  into  the 
re-opened  workshops,  and  if  it  is  true  that  the 
*'  Directoire  Style  "  either  scarcely  exists  at  all  or 
actually  existed  earlier  than  the  government  of 
the  Directors  and  was  destined  to  outlive  it,  it  is 
also  most  true  that  the  greater  part  of  the  pieces 
that  are  grouped  under  this  description  were 
made  after  1795,  because  during  the  preceding 
years  hardly  any  had  been  made  at  all.  But  the 
Directoire  is  2i plutocracy^  and  as  nearly  all  the  old 
fortunes  had  been  swept  away,  this  plutocracy  is 
a  regime  of  yiouveaux  riches.  Some  are  the 
"nantis,"  the  "corrupted"  of  the  political 
world,  admirers  and  imitators  of  Barras ;  others 
have  speculated  in  army  supplies ;  the  most  have 
grown  rich  by  buying  the  goods  of  the  nation  for 
a  song ;  all  are  parvenus  without  taste,  without 
traditions,  who  mean  to  enjoy  as  rapidly  as  pos- 
sible a  fortune  that  may  be  fragile,  and  make  the 


THE  NOUVEAUX  RICHES    27 

utmost  possible  display  of  it.  But  they  do  not 
know  the  art  of  spending  royally,  like  a  grand 
seigneur  or  fermier  general  of  the  old  time,  who 
set  a  high  value  upon  fine  things ;  they  bargain 
and  are  stingy  in  giving  their  orders ;  for  them 
work  must  be  done  quickly  and  cheap,  with 
economy  both  in  material  and  workmanship. 
Hence  the  general  meanness  of  furniture  during 
the  last  years  of  the  century.  They  might,  those 
nouveaux  riches,  have  acquired,  and  could  still 
acquire  for  a  sheaf  of  assignats^  the  masterpieces 
of  Riesener  and  Oeben,  but  they  prefer  to  sur- 
round themselves  with  bran  new  pieces,  made 
expressly  for  them,  for  which  we  should  be 
wrong  to  blame  them.  It  is  only  just  to  say  it : 
these  "  articles  of  furniture  and  objects  of  taste  " 
— ^that  is  the  name  La  Mesangere,  the  director 
of  the  Journal  des  Modes  et  des  Dames ^  gives,  in  his 
famous  collection  of  models,  to  the  furniture  in 
fashion  at  the  time — were  much  sought  after 
abroad,  and  began  once  more  to  be  exported  in 
spite  of  the  wars  waged  by  the  Republic  against 
so  many  coalitions. 

The  imitation  of  the  antique  was  more  than 
ever  the  supreme  law ;  we  know  the  Merveilleuses 
all  had  the  ambition  to  be  clothed — or  unclothed 
— like  Sappho,  and  it  was  about  this  time  that 
Madame  Vigee-Lebrun  gave  the  memorable 
dinner  described  in  her  Souvenirs^  at  which  the 
guests  were  crowned  with  roses,  draped  in  the 
antique  fashion,  recHning  on  couches  on  their 
elbows,  and  ate  "  Spartan  black  broth,"  drinking 


28     LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

out  of  "Etruscan"  goblets  and  singing,  to  the 
accompaniment  of  a  lyre,  hymns  to  Bacchus 
punctuated  with  cries  of  ^'Evoe  !  " 

The  most  celebrated  interior  of  the  last  years 
of  the  Republic  was  the  one  that  Madame 
Rccamier  had  had  decorated  and  furnished  by  the 
fashionable  upholsterer  Berthaud,  under  the 
guidance  of  Percier,  Fontaine  and  BcUange.  The 
sleeping  chamber  was  all  in  mahogany,  from  the 
pilasters  on  the  walls,  the  door  cases,  the  doors, 
down  to  the  smallest  article  of  furniture ;  all  this 
severe  red-brown  was  relieved  by  some  inlay  of 
citron  wood  and  silver  fillets ;  for  hangings  red 
velvet,  and  on  the  chairs  Beauvais  tapestry  v/ith 
flowers  and  fruits  of  brilliant  colours  on  a  deep 
brown  ground — the  famous  Etruscan  fashion ! 
Furthermore,  architraves  of  polished  violet 
granite,  architectural  motifs  in  oriental  alabaster ; 
curtains  of  chamois,  violet  and  black,  draped  in 
the  most  complicated  fashion.  Such  were  the 
colours  in  vogue. 

There  was  much  talk  too  of  the  little  mansion 
General  Buonaparte  had  bought,  on  his  return 
from  the  campaign  in  Italy,  from  Talma.  It 
was  in  the  Rue  Chantereine,  which  then  became 
the  Rue  de  la  V^ctoire.  The  furniture,  as  be- 
fitted the  conqueror  (£  Areola  and  Rivoli,  was 
nothing  but  symbols  of  war  and  victory;  for 
seats,  arm-chairs  of  ebony  inlaid  with  silver,  and 
stools  that  were  drums,  with  their  cords  stretched 
round  a  barrel  of  yellow  hide ;  a  mahogany 
commode    with    lions'  heads;  a  bed  "painted 


ALLEGORICAL  FURNITURE  29 

antique  bronze  '^ ;  a  bureau,  the  bronze  ornaments 
on  which  were  Roman  glaives. 

After  the  Egyptian  campaign,  in  which  a  kind 
of  archaeological  staff  duplicated  the  military 
staff  of  the  hero,  there  could  not  fail  to  come  a 
fit  of  Egyptomania.  It  did  come,  and  it  was 
then  that  Vivant-Denon,  one  of  the  savants  that 
had  followed  the  expedition,  both  archaeologist 
and  architect  at  the  same  time,^  had  a  bedroom 
fitted  up  by  Jacob  Desmalter  to  his  own  designs, 
which  aimed  at  being  of  the  purest  Pharaonic 
style.  The  bed,  of  mahogany  inlaid  with  silver, 
had  three  faces  ornamented  with  bas-reliefs  of  rows 
of  kneeling  figures ;  its  head  was  decorated  with  a 
carved  Isis,  and  the  legs  with  the  Uraeus  symbol. 
Numerous  Egyptian  pieces  will  presently  figure  in 
the  collection  of  designs  by  Percier  and  Fontaine. 

All  this  was  in  arguable  taste ;  but  what  is  to 
be  said  of  so  much  other  allegorical  furniture  that 
passed  at  this  time  for  the  latest  word  in  art  ? 
For  a  "  warrior  "  who  seeks  recreation  and  relax- 
ation between  two  campaigns,  from  the  noble 
works  of  Bellona,  here  is  a  bedroom  that  is  a 
soldier's  tent,  whose  hangings  are  held  up  by 
pikes ;  everywhere  are  hung  trophies  of  weapons, 
glaives  and  shields ;  the  posts  of  the  couch,  which 
is  in  the  shape  of  a  camp  bed,  aie  surmounted  by 
the  helmets  of  Greek  hoplites. 

A  "disciple  of  Act  aeon ''  (for  this  read  "a 
great  hunter  '')  has  his  chamber  transformed  into 
a  temple  of  Diana.  The  ceiling  has  two  sloped 
*  The  Venddme  Column  is  his  work. 


30    LOUIS   XVI    FURNITURE 

sides,  like  the  roof  of  a  Greek  temple ;  the  bed  is 
under  a  canopy  with  a  pediment,  upheld  on  four 
slender  columns.  For  ornaments,  a  bust  of 
Diana  flanked  by  two  stags'  heads  at  the  peak  of 
the  pediment ;  dogs,  bows,  arrows,  etc.  Behind 
the  bed,  on  the  back  wall,  a  bas-relief,  Diana  and 
Endymion.  In  the  foreground  two  termini 
representing  Silence  and  Night,  one  with  a  finger 
on  his  lips  and  holding  a  cornucopia  full  of 
poppies,  the  other  bearing  a  torch.  The  roof 
'*  appears  to  be  upborne  on  open  pillars,  which 
allow  the  beholder  to  perceive," in  painting,  "the 
verdure  of  the  trees  among  which  it  is  supposed 
this  little  temple  has  been  erected."  And  this 
too  is  still  Percier  and  Fontaine. 

After  these  extravagances,  half  archaeological 
half  symbolic,  the  Empire  Style,  properly  so 
called,  will  be,  in  spite  of  its  persistent  pedantry, 
a  real  return  to  reason  and  simplicity. 

On  the  1 8th  Brumaire,  in  the  year  VIII, 
France  gives  herself  to  her  hero.  It  is  not  yet 
the  Empire,  but,  as  far  as  the  domain  of  art  goes, 
the  reign  of  Napoleon  begins.  The  First  Consul 
dreams  at  once  of  peace,  offers  peace  to  England, 
speaks  of  nothing  but  the  works  of  peace.  "  We 
must  lay  aside  our  jack-boots,"  he  says,  "and 
think  of  commerce,  encourage  the  arts,  give 
prosperity  to  our  country."  One  of  his  first 
cares  is  to  re-establish  French  luxury  and  refine- 
ment in  its  glorious  traditions,  to  remake  a 
court  little  by  little.     He  wishes  to  have  palaces, 


ADVENT  OF  NAPOLEON  31 

if  not  built  for  him,  at  least  decorated  and 
furnished  for  him.  He  begins  by  employing 
Percier  and  Fontaine,  who  are  presented  to  him 
by  David,  to  restore  and  furnish  Malmaison, 
which  Josephine  has  bought  in  1798.  Hencefor- 
ward Napoleon  will  never  wish  to  have  any  other 
architect  or  decorator  for  his  great  official  fetes 
but  the  two  inseparable  friends ;  the  doing  up  of 
Saint  Cloud  will  come  after  Malmaison,  then  the 
Tuileries,  the  Louvre,  etc.  We  may  say  that 
the  coup  (Tetat  of  Brumaire,  and  all  that 
followed  from  it,  has  been  an  inexpressible  boon 
for  our  artistic  industries.  It  is  not  that  Napoleon 
had  any  passion  for  art,  nor  that  he  had  a  great 
deal  of  taste  ;  the  setting  in  which  his  devouring 
activity  moved,  when  he  was  not  on  campaign, 
was  a  matter  of  profound  indifference  to  him — 
he  did  not  even  see  it.  But  it  was  part  of  his 
scheme  of  policy  to  want  to  have  about  him  a 
solid  and  grandiose  luxury,  fitted  to  give  a  lofty 
impression  of  his  power ;  he  was  imperious, 
always  in  a  hurry,  abounding  in  colossal  projects 
quickly  cast  aside ;  but  he  opened  his  coffers 
wide,  and  when  he  had  once  given  an  artist  his 
confidence  he  never  withdrew  it  without  good 
reason.  It  must  be  admitted,  also,  that  men  like 
David,  Percier,  and  Fontaine  were  wonderfully 
made  to  fit  in  with  him. 

Of  the  two  latter  it  may  be  said  that  they  were 
the  creators  of  the  official  Empire*Style.  ^^^Was  it 
for  the  good  of  French  decorative  art  or  the 
reverse  ?     The  answer  is  not  in  doubt-     The  de- 


32    LOUIS   XVI    FURNITURE 

fects  of  Empire  art,  coldness,  aridness,  continual 
anachronisms,  are  not  to  be  imputed  to  them. 
It  would  have  had  those  faults  without  them 
(for  it  had  them  already)  even  if  they  had  not 
been  the  whole-hearted  admirers  of  the  Ancients 
which  they  always  showed  themselves.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  were  architects  in  their  souls, 
and  their  architectural  qualities  they  gave  to  all 
their  projects  of  decoration  and  furnishing  ;  they 
had  a  lofty  imagination,  grandeur  and  simplicity 
of  taste,  they  understood  their  epoch  and  the 
Napoleonic  regime  to  a  hair ;  their  conception 
may  displease  us,  or  chill  us,  but  we  cannot  deny 
that  it  was  admirably  appropriate  to  its  destined 
use.     Can  any  praise  be  greater  ? 

Can  there  be  conceived  for  this  epoch,  when 
national  pride  straightened  every  frame,  when 
warlike  enthusiasm  hovered  in  the  air  and  swelled 
every  bosom,  when  glory  inflamed  every  youthful 
brain,  when  every  will  was  stiff  and  proud,  when 
military  despotism  was  imposed  upon  the  nation 
by  virtue  of  its  conquests,  can  there  be  conceived 
other  furniture  or  another  style  of  decoration 
than  those  on  which,  upon  broad  austere  surfaces, 
marked  out  by  straight  lines  and  sharp  edges, 
there  were  hung  swords  and  triumphing  palms 
were  displayed,  and  golden  Victories  postured 
with  widespread  wings  ?  It  is  because  they 
profoundly  felt  this  fitness  and  harmony  that 
Percier  and  Fontaine  were  great  artists. 

This  style,  so  highly  appropriate  to  Imperial 
France,    was    nevertheless,   in  spite  of  the  slow 


AN   ARTIFICIAL    STYLE  33 

elaboration  we  have  described,  not  in  the  pure 
national  tradition ;  it  was  not  sprung  spon- 
taneously from  our  own  soil  and  under  our  own 
skies ;  it  had  something  abstract  and  arbitrary, 
something  imposed  on  our  taste  as  the  regime 
itself  was  imposed  on  the  nation.  In  short, 
there  have  been  styles  that  are  far  more  truly 
French.  There  is  a  contradiction  here,  someone 
will  say.  It  is  in  appearance  only.  The  truth 
is  that  France  was  then  at  a  quite  exceptional 
moment  in  her  long  existence.  The  fever  of 
conquest  that  had  come  after  the  revolutionary 
fever  had  broken  the  equilibrium  of  her  tempera- 
ment ;  she  was  beside  herself  at  this  moment 
when  her  history  seems  to  be  pure  legend.  The 
Empire  Style  was  very  exactly  befitting  for 
France  as  she  was  from  1800  to  18 15,  but  to 
that  France  only,  not  the  eternal  France.  When 
it  found  favour  once  more  with  artists  and 
public,  between  1890  and  1895,  it  was,  let  us 
confess  it,  a  quite  artificial  movement. 

What  clearly  shows  that  this  style  is  something 
international — in  any  case  the  imitation  of 
antiquity  from  which  it  proceeded  was  by  no 
means  specially  French ;  think  of  Canova, 
Thorwaldsen,  Angelica  Kaufmann,  and  otheri — 
is  the  enthusiasm  with  which  it  was  adopted  at 
once  by  all  nations,  whether  they  were  subjected 
to  Napoleon's  domination  or  not.  Never  perhaps 
had  French  decorative  art  such  expansive  force. 
Jacob  Desmalter  (almost  always  following  the 
models  of  Percier  and  Fontaine)  furnishedj^not 


34    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

only  Malmaison,  Compiegne,  Saint  Cloud,  Fon- 
tainebleau,  the  Elysee,  without  reckoning  so 
many  private  mansions  in  Paris,  but  also  the 
Escurial,  Aran] uez,  Windsor  Castle,  and  countless 
palaces  and  mansions  in  Antwerp,  Mayence, 
Potsdam,  and  even  as  far  as  Petrogad. 

But  when  this  species  of  exaltation  subsided 
in  France,  and  the  Empire  was  succeeded  by  the 
Restoration,  that  royalty  devoid  of  glory,  that 
peaceful,  bourgeois,  somewhat  flat  and  dull  period 
of  our  history,  the  decadence  was  immediate  and 
profound  ;  the  Empire  Style  was  preserved  in  a 
haphazard  fashion,  for  want  of  knowing  what  to 
put  in  its  place,  but  at  the  same  time  its 
character  was  changed  in  the  direction  of 
heaviness  and  flabbiness ;  it  degenerated  very 
speedily,  because  there  was  no  longer  harmony 
between  it  and  the  manners  of  the  time. 


SECOND    PART 
THE    LOUIS   XVI    FURNITURE 


CHAPTER  ONE :  CHARACTER- 
ISTICS AND  TECHNIQUE 
OF  THE  LOUIS  XVI  STYLE 

The  least  instructed  eye  can  tell  at  the  first 
glance  a  Louis  XVI  piece  from  a  Louis  XV ; 
and  yet  there  is  no  essential  or  fundamental 
difference  such  as  there  is  between  the  style  of 
Louis  XV  and  that  of  Louis  XIV.  It  is  because 
manners  and  customs  are  at  bottom  the  same 
after  1760  as  before  that  date,  and  will  remain 
the  same  until  1789  ;  now,  only  a  transformation 
in  manners  and  customs  can  bring  about  a 
radical  change  in  furniture  fashions.  We  have 
determined  the  approximate  date  when  the  new 
style  replaced  the  old  ;  at  this  date  Louis  XV 
is  still  on  the  throne,  and  in  spite  of  his  age 
his  ways  have  not  altered.  Madame  du  Barry 
succeeds  Madame  de  Pompadour,  and  it  is 
merely  one  degree  more  of  abasement.  It  is  for 
this  Lange  woman,  become  Comtesse  du  Barry, 
that  the  pavilion  of  Louveciennes  was  built  and 
furnished ;  that  vanished  marvel  which,  without 
any  doubt,  was  the  most  exquisite  masterpiece  of 
the  Louis  XVI  Style.  The  aristocracy  and  the 
wealthy  bourgeoisie  are  always  the  same  in  the 
round,  equally  eager  for  the  life  of  society  and 
for  pleasure,  equally  denuded  of  moral  sense  ; 
but  if  they  take  good  care  not  to  practise  virtue, 

37 


38    LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

just  as  Diderot  and  Rousseau  did,  they  have  fallen 
to  adoring  it  with  emotion  in  other  people. 

That  senile  blase  society  had  its  living  allegory 
in  old  Marquise  du  Deffand  ;  by  dint  of  adven- 
tures, satirical  conversations,  v^it  spent||with 
heedless  prodigality,  by  dint  of  scepticism,  and  of 
having  been  through  everything,  she  had  fallen 
into  a  state  of  profound  ennui,  which  was  a 
genuine  malady  and  one  that  she  believed  to  be 
incurable  ;  and  lo !  at  seventy  years  or  near  it, 
she  was  seized  with  a  passion,  one  of  those  passions 
that  take  complete  possession  of  a  soul,  an  absurd 
and  touching  passion  for  Horace  Walpole,  whom, 
as  she  was  blind,  she  had  never  seen.  .  .  .  Like 
her,  eighteenth  century  society  had  its  senti- 
mental fit,  rather  late  in  life.  The  virtue, 
the  sensibility  (they  are  the  same  things  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  of  this  epoch),  the  simplicity 
of  the  ancient  days  and  "natural"  men  are  all 
the  fashion,  but  merely  a  fashion.  Women  of 
quality  continue  to  go  every  night  to  the  Opera 
or  the  new  Opera  Comique,  and  in  what  extrava- 
gant array  !  but  the  pieces  they  listen  to  are 
called  le  Bon  Fils^  le  Bon  Seigneur^  V Amour 
Paternal^  or  la  Suivante  reconnaissanU^  and 
if  they  are  young  mothers,  as  they  have  read 
Entile^  they  have  their  babies  brought  to  them 
during  the  interval  and  suckle  them  in  their 
box  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  in  full  view  while 
doing  so.  Philanthropy  is  a  novelty  which 
becomes  the  rage,  and  on  every  chiffonier  the 
Mercure  de  France  meets  with  the  Annates 


A  SOPHISTICATED  SOCIETY  39 

de  la  Bienfaisance  and  the  Etrennes  de  la 
Vertu^  newspapers  founded  to  advertise  the 
virtuous  doings  of  fashionable  folk.  The  financier 
on  his  w^ay,  accompanied  by  some  *'  modern 
Terpsichore,"  to  a  smart  party  in  the  little  house 
in  the  suburbs,  v^as  happy  to  stop  his  coach  on 
the  way  to  give  alms,  shedding  gentle  tears  the 
while,  to  some  poor  but  respectable  aged  man 
caught  sight  of  on  the  wayside.  Everyone 
delights  to  exclaim,  *'  Simplicity !  Virtue  !  what 
charms  ye  hold  for  feeling  mortals !  "  but  luxury 
becomes  more  and  more  unbridled.  Palates  are 
weary  of  too  learned  gravies  and  over-seasoned 
bisques,  and  it  is  a  delicious  pleasure  to  pay  a 
visit  to  a  farm  and  dip  a  slice  of  home-made 
bread  in  a  pitcher  of  hot  milk ;  but  they  will  be 
back  for  supper  again  next  day.  The  typical  men 
of  this  generation  are  Diderot,  who  alternates  so 
naively  his  blackguardism  and  his  tearful  ex- 
hortations to  virtue,  and  Greuze,  who  so  much 
delights  to  slip  spicy  innuendos  into  his  studies  of 
girls  as  into  his  large  melodramatic  pictures. 

Such  is  the  double  character  of  Society  under 
Louis  XVI  ;  at  bottom  epicurean  and  worldly, 
just  as  in  the  first  half  of  the  century,  it  never- 
theless loves  simplicity,  virtue  and  reason.  Let 
us  repeat  that  it  returns  to  a  taste  for  Greco- 
Roman  antiquity,  and  there  you  have  the 
principal  elements  of  the  style.  The  task  of 
architects,  designers,  cabinet-makers  and  joiners, 
metal  casters  and  engravers,  up  to  the  end  of  the 
old  regime,  is  to  be  to  harmonise  the  taste  for  snug 


40    LOUIS   XVI    FURNITURE 

comfort,  intimacy,  attaching  grace,  the  most 
exquisite  refinement,  which  marked  the  highest 
and  the  middle  classes  in  French  society  of  the 
time,  with  the  noble  and  simple  beauty  of 
antiquity.  Refined  simplicity,  a  sober  elegance, 
neatness  and  precision,  softened  by  abundant 
grace  ;  such  is  the  ideal,  Antiquity  will  then  be 
interpreted  and  made  French  as  in  the  noble 
days  of  the  Renaissance,  and  when  archaelogy  is 
in  conflict  with  what  is  comfortable  and  pleasing, 
so  much  the  worse  for  archaeology ;  it  must  needs 
give  way. 

In  fine,  in  spite  of  the  progress  in  the  science 
of  antiquity,  in  spite  of  exhumed  Pompeii,  what 
was  best  known  in  ancient  art  about  1760  was 
Roman  architecture.  Accordingly  it  is  Roman 
architecture  that  gives  the  tone  to  the  new  style. 
Furniture  falls  again  under  the  yoke  of  architec- 
ture, which  it  had  shaken  off,  for  the  first  time 
and  for  a,  little  while  during  the  reign  of  the 
grotto. 

"There  are,"  said  Delacroix,  "certain  lines 
that  are  monsters :  the  straight  line,  the  regular 
serpentine,  above  all  two  parallel  lines."  These 
monsters  are  henceforth  and  for  a  long  time  to 
rule  in  furniture.  Roman  architecture,  in  fact, 
is  primarily  a  family  of  lines ;  the  straight  line 
and  the  semi-circular  arch,  the  horizontal  parallels 
of  cornices,  the  vertical  parallels  of  pilasters  and 
their  flutings ;  right  angles  too ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  negation  of  all  sinuous  lines  like  those  of 
nature — if  indeed  there  be  any  lines  in  nature — 


GEOMETRY  IN  DESIGN  41 

the  sweet  living  lines  that  the  Louis  XV  Style  had 
placed  everywhere  for  the  delight  of  our  eyes. 
Henceforth  commodes  no  longer  fear  to  look 
like  "a  box  perched  up  on  four  laths,"  except 
those  that  link  their  fa?ade  v^th  the  wall  against 
which  they  stand  by  two  little  quarter-cylindrical 
cupboards,  or  by  shelves  shaped  to  quarter  circles 
full  or  re-entrant ;  except  again  those  that  vsdll 
retain  supports  slightly  tending  Xo  pied  de  btche 
shape  under  their  chamfered  angles.  This  kind 
continued  to  be  made  up  till  towards  the  end  of 
the  style. 

Quantities  of  arches,  semi- circular  or  elliptical, 
on  top  of  panels  of  woodwork  (Fig.  2),  mirrors, 
chair  backs  (Figs.  48,  50,  76),  numbers  of  ellipses 
also;  frames  of  panels  (Fig.  2)  upon  walls,  borders 
for  mirrors  and  pictures,  medallion-shaped  chair 
backs  (Figs.  41,  etc.),  tables  large  and  small, 
console  tables  (Figs.  31,  32),  folding  tables,  com- 
modes, even  armoires  (Fig.  5)  are  very  frequently 
semi-circular  in  ground  plan.  In  short,  the  im- 
personal traced  with  ruler  and  square  and  compass 
constantly  takes  the  place  of  freehand  designs,  the 
fancy  of  the  crayon  and  the  graving-tool.  All 
this  geometry  has  in  it  something  abstract,  some- 
thing purely  rational,  calculated  to  please  mathe- 
matical minds,  like  that  of  d'Alembert,  for  in- 
stance, or  Condillac's ;  but  it  would  be  very  arid 
if  it  was  not  almost  always  mitigated  by  the  more 
living  grace  of  the  ornaments.  Many  Louis  XVI 
pieces  follow  this  principle  of  the  straight  line  to 
the  very  end,  and  do  not  comprise  a  single  curve 


42  Louis  xvi  furniture 

(Figs.  20,  26,  etc.).  The  excess  of  abstraction  and 
dryness  cannot  then  be  denied.  On  the  other 
hand,  this  uncompromising  rigidness,  these  joins 
that  are  all  made  at  right  angles,  satisfy  the  reason 
by  defining  with  complete  and  perfect  distinctness 
every  part  of  the  piece,  by  respecting  to  the 
utmost  the  grain  of  the  wood,  and  by  giving  the 
joints  the  maximum  of  solidity  and  strength.  No 
doubt,  but  how  cold  it  all  is ! 

Ancient  architecture  brought  back  also  absolute 
symmetry  in  form  and  in  ornament ;  never  more 
do  designers  offend,  except  for  insignificant  details 
of  decoration  (flowers,  ribbons,  etc.),  against  the 
venerable  rule  of  the  identity  of  the  corre- 
sponding parts  to  the  right  and  to  the  left  of  a 
centre  line. 

t^  Another  principle,  architectural  in  its  origin ; 
the  definition  of  a  surface,  devoid  of  ornament, 
by  a  border  or  several  parallel  borders  taking  the 
place  of  ornamentation.  Numbers  of  pieces 
have  no  other  decoration  (Figs.  6,  17,  21) ;  large 
bare  surfaces  are  in  high  favour  ;  "  the  sublime 
and  virtuous  nudity  of  the  Greeks,"  as  David 
said,  exists  for  mahogany  and  stone  as  well  as  for 
the  human  body ;  and  when  that  mahogany  is  of 
a  very  handsome  quality,  veined,  figured,  with  a 
warm  patina  from  age,  nothing  more  by  way  of 
ornamentation  need  be  desired.  These  framings 
are  generally  mouldings  in  gilt  bronze,  or  covered 
with  brass ;  sometimes,  especially  at  the  latter 
end  of  the  epoch,  they  are  simple  bands  of  brass 
embedded  in   the  wood  (Fig.  35).     When  the 


SIMPLEX    MUNDITIIS     43 

piece  contains  no  brass,  they  are  thin  strips  o^ 
wood,  the  colour  of  which  stands  out  against  that 
of  the  background. 

As  for  the  shape  of  the  panels  thus  defined,  they 
are  squares,  rectangles,  arches  accompanied  by 
corner  pieces  of  the  same  border  or  a  triangular 
rosace  of  acanthus  leaf,  ellipses,  circles.  The 
rectangular  panels  are  often  sloped  off  at  the 
angles,  either  rounded  off  or  squared  off,  and  this 
slope  is  adorned  with  a  small  round  rosace.  One 
very  favourite  panel  also,  on  commodes  and 
escritoires  with  flaps  (those  made  by  Riesener 
particularly),  is  a  trapezium,  the  oblique  sides  of 
which  are  concave. 

The  form  of  moulding  is  changed.  There  is 
now  less  than  on  Louis  XV  pieces ;  it  is  flatter, 
more  austere,  more  uniform  also ;  in  general  it 
obeys  the  laws  of  the  ancient  kinds ;  ogee, 
doucine,  scotia,  cavetto,  apophysis,  all  auto- 
matically combined,  without  any  fanciful  effects, 
with  fillets  and  baguets. 

These  elements  are  poor  enough ;  they  do  not 
offer  any  very  varied  resources  to  artists.  How 
is  it  then  that  so  many  Louis  XVI  pieces  give  so 
full  an  impression  of  grace  or  beauty  ?  First  of 
all  by  their  proportions,  which  are  nearly  always 
exquisitely  right,  by  the  faultless  equilibrium 
of  balanced  masses,  the  harmonious  division 
of  surfaces,  the  importance  of  the  framing 
calculated  with  exactitude  according  to  that 
of  the  parts  enclosed  by  the  frame.  In  these 
matters  tact  has  perhaps  never  been  so  sure  as 


44  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

in  the  epoch  of  Louis  XVI.  And  then  the 
ornamentation  came  with  the  same  sureness  of 
taste  to  add  to  a  somewhat  bare  whole  just 
what  richness  was  needed  within  the  limits  of 
deliberate  sobriety. 

The  essential  difference  between  the  orna- 
mentation of  pieces  belonging  to  the  Louis  XV 
period  and  that  of  Louis  XVI  pieces  is  that  the 
latter  most  frequently  proceeds  by  way  of 
repetition  of  similar  element^  arranged  in  lines 
or  combined  in  a  running  motif.  This  also  is  a 
legacy  from  ancient  architecture.  Such  a  decora- 
tion can  be  made,  so  to  speak,  by  the  yard, 
which  facilitates  to  a  distressing  degree  cheap- 
jack  imitation,  even  machine  made  imitation  of 
Louis  XVI  pieces. 

Another  characteristic  common  to  the  majority 
of  the  ornaments  of  the  Louis  XVI  Style  is  the 
small  scale  on  which  they  are  treated  by  carvers, 
and  especially  by  the  artists  in  bronze.  It 
appears  that  they  never  find  their  motives 
sufficiently  finished  and  delicate,  sufficiently  em- 
bellished w'th  little  details  that  serve  to  display 
the  cunning  of  their  engraving  tool.  A  furniture 
bronze  is  treated  like  a  piece  of  goldsmith's  work, 
and  a  piece  of  goldsmith's  work  like  a  gem.  This 
fault,  for  it  is  a  fault — ^let  us  call  it  affectation — 
comes  without  a  doubt,  as  has  been  well  observed, 
from  the  passion  both  men  and  women  of  the 
time  had  for  small  articles,  the  toys,  "  brimborions '' 
as  they  were  called,  such  as  were  bought  at  the 
famous  shop,  the  Petit  Dunkerque ;  little  fancy 


DECORATIVE  MOTIFS    45 

boxes  of  gold,  enamelled  or  chased  (with  the 
inscription  Don  (T  Amitie — "  friendship's  gift  '*), 
little  boxes  of  pale  tortoise  shell,  with  gold  inlay 
or  piqu6  work,  handles  of  walking  canes  in  painted 
china,  coat  buttons  with  miniatures,  incense  boxes 
of  mother-of-pearl  pierced  and  engraved.  .  .  . 
These  thousand  and  one  knick-knacks,  whose  tiny 
ornamentation,  marvellous  in  its  finish,  has 
something  Japanese  about  it,  had  accustomed 
the  eye  to  a  singularly  reduced  scale  of  decora- 
tion ;  so  much  so  that  the  superb  amplitude  of  the 
Louis  XIV  and  Louis  XV  ornaments  passed  for 
coarseness.  Let  us  be  quite  frank;  for  less  sophisti- 
cated eyes  a  bronze  by  the  great  Gouthiere 
cuts  a  sorry  figure  beside  a  bronze  by  Caffieri. 

The  running  ornaments  most  generally  used 
are  denticules^^  godrons^^  entrelacs^^  formed  of 
two  interlacing  ribbons  which  very  often  enclose 
rosaces  in  their  bows ;  oves^*"  a  succession  of  egg- 
shaped  projections,  rais  de  coeur^  lines  of  small 
feuilles  d^eau^  not  indented,  or  feutlles 
d^acanthc ;  fret  decoration  on  plain  friezes ; 
rinceauXy^  tores  (or  boiidins)  of  bay  or  oak  leaves  ^; 
rubans   enroules  ^    around    baguets ;  rangs  de 

*Fig.5. 

*  See  the  chapeau  top  of  the  arm-chair  in  Fig.  3S. 

*  Framing  of  the  cupboard  doors  in  Fig.  4;  the  drawer  of  the 
escritoire  (Fig.  16),  etc. 

*  Cornice  of  the  cupboard  (Fig,  4). 

*  Top  of  the  cupboard  (Fig.  4). 

«  Fixed  central  part  of  the  same  cupboard  (Fig.  4). 
7  The  same  (Fig.  4)  on  the  lower  part  of  the  cornice ;  framing 
on  the  drawers  of  the  commode  (Fig.  24), 


46  LOUIS   XVI    FURNITURE 

piastres  ^  that  ought  rather  to  be  called  rangs  de 
sapeques^  for  more  than  anything  else  they 
resemble  those  coins  current  in  the  Far  East, 
pierced  in  the  middle  and  strung  on  a  rush  tie ; 
W7tcs  or  reeds  fastened  by  an  intertwined  ribbon  ; 
cotes  bound  by  acanthus  leaves ;  chap  lets  of  olives 
and  beads  alternating;  rangs  de  perles^i  and 
lastly  the  ornament  far  the  most  frequently 
employed  of  all,  because  it  is  made  quickly  and 
easily  w^ith  a  gouge  ;  rows  of  short  cannelures ' 
or  flutings  covering  friezes,  traverses  and  string 
courses. 

Among  the  other  ornamental  motifs ^  the 
following  are  the  principal  that  were  borrowed 
from  ancient  architecture.  First  and  foremost 
the  column^  detached,  or  more  frequently  en- 
gaged, at  the  angles  of  commodes,  escritoires,  and 
chiffoniers/  The  base  is  turned,  the  shaft 
generally  fluted.  It  is  well  known  how  great 
use  this  style  made  of  cannelures  ^  which  were 
called  rather  canaux.  Sometimes  they  were 
plain,  sometimes  rudente^  that  is  to  say,  each 
one  filled  to  a  ceitain  distance  from  the  base  with  a 
baguet ;  if  the  filling  is  plain  it  is  given  the  name 
of  chandelle^  and  if  it  ends  in  a  carved  motif 
like  a  half  opened  bud  or  a  head  of  corn,  it  is 
known  as  asperge?  Very  much  used  are  imita- 
tion flutings  of  marquetry  with  burnt  shading,^ 

*  Back  of  the  arm-chair  (Fig.  38) ;  arm  consoles  (Figs.  40  and  47) 

*  See  the  cupboard,  Fig.  7. 

*  Figs.  20, 26,  28,  etc.  *  Figs.  14,  25. 

»  Figs.  6,  14,  25,  etc.  6  Figs.  48,  50,  etc. 

^  Figs.  29,  A7.  '  Fig.  15. 


THE   CARYATID   APPEARS   47 

pilastres  *  ^  are  fluted  in  a  similar  way ;  the 
balustres  *  that  serve  as  supports  for  the  arms  of 
chairs  are  frequently,  as  also  are  the  legs  of  chairs,* 
given  a  spiral  instead  of  a  vertical  fluting.  The 
capitals  of  columns  and  pilasters  are  Ionic  or 
Corinthian ;  the  Ionic  capital  often  carries  a 
garland  hanging  from  the  centre  of  the  volutes. 
Tov^ards  the  end  of  the  Louis  XVI  period  the 
capital  is  replaced  by  a  circular  moulding  covered 
with  brass. ^  For  the  column  may  be  substituted 
the  caryatid  ;  in  the  eighteenth  century,  this 
name  was  given  not  merely  to  a  human  figure  or 
a  terminus,  but  any  animal,  fabulous  or  other- 
wise (a  seated  female  sphinx,  for  example),  any  / 
bust  or  torso  acting  as  a  support.  ^ 

The  console  is  employed,  such  as  it  is,  with 
two  volutes  as  its  extremities,  or  more  or  lesss 
modified,  whether  as  the  support  of  a  console 
table  *  or  as  a  chute  * ;  it  is  often  ornamented 
with  a  garland.  It  was  also  as  chutes^  or 
rinceaux^  at  the  base  of  the  tabliers^  of 
commodes  that  cabinet-makers  used  triglyphs,^ 
ornaments  borrowed  from  the  Doric  frieze,  and 
composed  of  two  grooves  and  two  half-grooves 
hollowed  or  cut  through  in  a  bronze  plate,  under 
which  there  hung  the  gouttes^  a  kind  of  small 
pyramid  suspended  by  the  apex. 

^  Fig.  21. 

2  Fig.  40 

»  Figs.  14,  17,  etc, 

*  Fig.  33. 

*  See  the  chutes  of  the  commode  in  Fig.  28,  etc. 

£ 


48  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

It  would  be  too  long  to  describe  all  these 
antique  ornaments ;  let  us  merely  call  attention, 
in  the  animal  kingdom,  to  the  Roman  eagles,^ 
the  dolphins,  the  heads  of  lions,^  rams,  goats,  the 
bucranes^  or  bull's  skulls,  the  pieds  de  btche 
(an  exact  reproduction  of  the  animal's  leg,  and  no 
longer,  as  under  Louis  XVI,  a  far-off  interpreta- 
tion) ;  then  the  whole  series  of  mythological 
monsters,  sphinxes,  male  and  female,  griffons, 
chimaeras,  sirens ;  then  in  the  vegetable  world, 
garlands  and  chutes  de  gtnrlandes^  of  every 
kind,  wreaths  of  ivy,  bay,  flowers ;  rtnceaux^  of 
foliage,  especially  of  acanthus  leaf,^  which  is  so 
supple  in  adapting  itself  to  every  method  of  use, 
alone  or  combined  in  ^'  grotesques  '^  with  the 
human  face  or  animals'  masks,  and  which  this 
period  has  succeeded  in  making  so  elegant ;  the 
pine  cone,^  the  pomegranate,  the  Bacchante's 
thyrsus,  the  caduceus.  .  .  .  Lastly,  objects  made 
by  man :  bows,  quivers,^  antique  urns  ^  (which 
curio  dealers  disrespectfully  call  soup  tureens !), 
garlanded,  draped,  set  up  on  top  of  lambrequins ; 
fire  balls,  perfume  burners,  tripods,  etc. 

Certain  things  were  borrowed  also  from  the 
Renaissance,  such  as  the  vertical  string  courses  of 

*  Top  of  the  cupboard  in  Fig.  4. 
'  Arm  of  the  chair  in  Fig.  38. 

'  Commode  (Fig.  24),  consoles  in  Figs.  31  and  33. 

*  Woodwork  in  Figs.  I  and  2,  etc. 

^  Console  (Fig.  33);  bergeres  (Figs.  51  and  52,  etc). 
«  Fig.  76. 
7  Fig.  2. 

*  Figs.  3,  7,  9,  etc. 


VOGUE   OP   MAHOGANY  49 

arabesques,  imitated  from  those  of  Giovanni  of 
Udine  in  the  Loggias  of  the  Vatican,  and  the  • 
grotesque  masks  or  mascarons^  half  human  half 
vegetable.  \^  Finally,  many  of  the  motifs  are 
quite  modern,  and  common  to  the  Louis  XV  and  ,V 
Louis  XVI  styles ;  baskets  of  flowers,  of  fruits, 
branches  of  laurel,  or  oak,  or  ivy,  roses,  lilies, 
scattered,  crossed,  or  hung  from  ribbons ;  the 
knots  of  ribbons  ^  so  much  used  and  abused  by 
this  epoch ;  little  profile  medallions  and  all  the 
symbols ;  of  v^ar,  music,  the  sciences,  agriculture, 
the  pastoral  life,  fishing,  commerce ;  lovers' 
trophies  hung  from  bow^s  of  ribbon  ;  draperies  of 
fringed  or  tasselled  stuff  forming  a  frieze  or  a 
chute^ 

Working  cabinet-makers,  in  the  time  of 
Louis  XV,  had  carried  the  perfection  of  their 
technique  so  far  that  there  remained  but  little  of 
any  importance  to  be  discovered  in  this  domain. 
Certain  of  their  technical  secrets  are  even  lost, 
like  that  of  the  Martin  lacquer. 

The  same  kinds  of  wood  are  used,  native  woods  M^''^^'^ 
and  foreign  ;  above  all  mahogany,  which  comes  in  (/ 

greater  quantities  from  the  Antilles,  enjoys  extra- 
ordinary favour.  Marie  Antoinette's  boudoir  at 
Fontainebleau  is  completely  parqueted  with  it. 
What  is  something  new,  chairs  are  made  of  it ; 
it  is  used  for  the  most  part  in  large  surfaces  of  plain 
veneer.   \Ebony,  rather  given  up  as  too  austere,  — . 

>  Figs,  37,  43,  etc.  » Fig.  24. 


50  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

under  Louis  XV,  now  reappears.  The  method 
of  working  the  wood  does  not  alter,  but  the 
return  to  straight  lines  makes  it  possible  to  use 
much  more  turning,  for  the  legs  of  furniture, 
for  balusters,  and  pillars ;  and  the  guild  of  wood 
turners  becomes  one  with  that  of  the  joiners. 

The  preceding  epoch  had  seen  the  appearance 
of  porcelain  plaques  embedded  in  the  panels  of 
very  elaborate  and  costly  pieces ;  this  trick,  which 
is  assuredly  an  error  in  logic  and  in  taste,  becomes 
general  in  small  escritoires  for  ladies,  round 
breakfast  tables,  jardinieres,  and  other  very  refined 
pieces,  in  proportion  as  the  Sevres  china  becomes 
more  plentiful  and  more  perfect.  The  little 
bas-reliefs  of  Wedgwood  in  biscuit  ware  on  a  blue 
ground  begin  to  show  themselves  beside  the 
flowerets  of  Sevres. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  reign,  the  need  of 
finding  something  novel,  though  there  should  be 
nothing  new  left  under  the  sun,  led  cabinet- 
makers to  risk  innovations  that  were  more  or  less 
happy.  For  example,  the  inlaying  of  brass  in 
wood  in  the  shape  of  bands  and  little  plaques ; 
mouldings  covered  with  brass,  flutings  adorned 
with  brass,^  plaques  of  gilded  bronze  with 
parallel  horizontal  stripes  above  the  legs  of  pieces 
of  furniture.^  Tables,  round  tripod  tables  (called 
atheniennes)^  console  tables,  are  made,  except 
the  top,  which  is  porphyry  or  onyx,  all  of  metal, 
gilded  bronze,  bronze  with  antique  green  patina, 

^Figs.  14,  21,  etc.  *Fig.  14. 


ECCENTRICITIES  51 

wrought  and  gilded  iron,  steel  inlaid  with  silver ; 
Weisweiler  attempts  ornaments  of  pierced  brass 
on  a  ground  of  polished  steel.  At  the  same  time, 
others  had  the  strange  notion  of  painting  designs 
in  oils  on  the  background  of  natural  wood,  a 
decoration  that  had  no  permanence  when  it  was 
left  bare,  and  that  was  very  ugly  when  it  was 
covered  with  glass.  Still  others  would  cover  a 
piece  with  lozenges  of  mother-of-pearl.  .  .  .  All 
these  eccentric  attempts  are  clear  symptoms  of 
decadence. 


CHAPTER    II  :      PANELLED 
FURNITURE  AND  TABLES 

The  Louis  XVI  Style,  as  we  have  said,  only  came 
to  its  full  development  in  Paris  and  in  the  largest 
cities  in  the  kingdom.  In  the  depths  of  the 
provinces,  where  the  fashions  hardly  changed  at 
all,  and  especially  did  not  change  quickly,  it  only 
took  its  place  late  and  in  part  in  the  habits 
of  the  furniture  makers.  They  only,  it  appears, 
abandoned  the  goodly  Louis  XV  shapes,  with 
which  they  had  achieved  such  remarkable  results, 
after  having  remained  obstinately  faithful  to  them 
as  long  as  they  could.  Very  often  the  only  con- 
cession they  made  to  the  new  fashion  was  to 
add  the  "  antique "  motifs  to  the  repertoire  of 
the  ornaments  they  employed. 

That  is  especially  remarkable  with  regard  to  the 
armoires  and  buffets  of  the  provinces ;  one  might 
be  tempted  to  catalogue  them  nearly  all  as 
"  transition  "  pieces,  if  one  did  not  know  that  the 
most  salient  Louis  XV  characteristics  were  main- 
tained until  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  As,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Paris  work- 
shops, where  fashions  were  followed,  only  turned 
out  a  small  number  of  cupboards,  we  must  not 
be  surprised  at  the  scarcity  of  those  that  are 
homogeneously  Louis  XVI  in  their  lines  as  in 
their  ornamentation. 

The  Normandy  cupboard  reproduced  in  Fig.  3 
52 


REVOLUTIONARY  EMBLEMS  53 

is  one  of  these ;  the  straight  line  dominates  it, 
each  of  its  panels  is  symmetrical,  and  all  the 
details  of  its  decoration,  which  is  of  an  exquisite 
elegance,  are  borrowed  from  the  architecture  of 
the  ancients  or  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

But  here  (Fig.  4)  is  the  armoire  in  the  Car- 
navalet  Museum,  known  as  the  armoire  ^'  of  the 
taking  of  the  Bastille."  It  is  precisely  dated  by 
the  motif  in  bas-relief  on  the  left  hand  panel, 
which  has  given  it  its  name,  and  by  the  symbols 
of  the  three  orders  of  the  nation  carved  on  the 
middle  upright ;  above,  the  crosier  of  the  Clergy  ; 
in  the  middle  the  spade  topped  by  the  Phrygian 
cap,  the  emblem  of  the  emancipated  Third  Estate ; 
below  the  sword  denoting  the  Nobility.  Note 
still  other  revolutionary  emblems ;  the  flags  above 
the  leaves  of  the  doors,  the  pikes  on  the  rounded 
angles  of  the  armoire.  It  was  made,  therefore,  in 
1790  or  1791 ;  none  the  less,  the  shape  of  the 
panels  and  that  of  the  bottom  cross  piece  are  com- 
pletely Louiv  XV,  as  is  the  contorted  shape  of 
the  front  feet. 

The  large  half- moon  armoire  from  the  Gironde, 
seen  in  Fig.  5,  is  also  a  compromise  between  the 
two  styles ;  the  shape  of  the  panels,  of  the  lower 
cross  pieces,  of  the  feet  is  Louis  XV ;  all  the  rest 
clearly  belongs  to  the  style  of  the  next  epoch. 
So,  too,  this  other  armoire  from  the  Gironde 
(Fig.  6),  superb  in  its  refined  simplicity  (it  is 
made  of  very  beautiful  solid  mahogany),  is  hardly 
Louis  XVI  except  by  the  flutings  of  its  fausse 
tartie  dormante*  an4  of  its  chamfered  corners, 


54  LOUIS   XVI    FURNITURE 

and  by  the  somewhat  dry  distinctness  of  the 
moulding  of  the  cornice. 

On  the  other  hand,  many  Normandy  cupboards 
of  this  epoch  affect  the  most  tortuous  Hnes,  as  if 
the  Rococo  style  was  still  dominant,  and  carry  a 
regular  medley  of  carvings  in  high  relief,  where 
rows  of  ovolos,  chaplets  of  beads,  modillions  * 
with  acanthus  leaves  meet  with  the  rmceaiix  and 
the  "  haricots  "  that  were  the  foundation  of  the 
Louis  XV  ornamentation.  In  Provence  it  is 
better  still;  the  armoires  called  garde  robes, 
those  handsome  large  armoires  of  pale  cherry,  or 
walnut  unctuous  to  the  finger,  always  date  from 
the  Louis  XVI  epoch  when  their  decoration  is 
all  flowery  with  roses,  narcissi,  suns  intermingled 
with  emblems  of  love  and  musical  instruments ; 
whilst  the  pieces  that  belong  to  the  Louis  XV 
epoch  are  much  more  sober,  and  are  only  de- 
corated with  mouldings.  As  for  the  construction 
lines  and  the  shape  of  the  panels,  they  remained 
the  same  from  one  style  to  the  other. 

The  Provencal  pieces  we  reproduce  here  have 
been  selected  out  of  many  of  their  contem- 
poraries as  presenting  the  most  recognisable  of 
the  Louis  XVI  motifs  ;  the  antique  vases  on  the 
armoire  (Fig.  7),  on  the  kneading  trough  (Fig.  13), 
and  the  whatnot  shown  in  Fig.  9,  the  fluted 
columns  and  the  fows  of  beading  on  the  buffet- 
credence  (Fig.  8),'^  the  lyre,  the  bow  of  ribbon, 
■"and  the  crossed  palms  of  the  little  glass  case 
(Fig.  11).         ^ 

Under   Loi;is  XVI  there  was    invented  prac- 


THE   VITRINE  S5 

tically  only  one  single  new  piece  of  furniture  with 
panels,  the  vitrine.  Heretofore)  knick-knacks, 
even  the  most  precious,  had  been  placed  on  the 
chimney-piece  or  on  the  shelves^of  a  coin  (a 
little  corner  whatnot) ;  henceforth  a  special  piece 
of  furniture  will  keep  safe  from  dust  and  knocks, 
while  allowing  them  to  be  seen,  rare  porcelains, 
fragile  biscuit  ware,  Chinese  curiosities.  The 
vitrine  is  either  a  small  cupboard  (Fig.  14),  or 
an  under  cupboard;  sometimes  it  is  placed  on 
top  of  another  piece  of  furniture,  for  example,  a 
commode.  Its  ornamentation  is  sober,  often  re- 
duced to  baguets  and  flutings  in  brass,  for  the 
container  must  not  ''draw  the  eye  "  to  the  pre- 
judice of  the  contained.  The  turned  and  splayed 
out  feet  of  the  vitrine  we  reproduce  are  called 
toupies.  The  top  is  on  three  of  its  sides  sur- 
rounded by  a  little  gallery  or  balustrade  of 
pierced  brass,  which  we  shall  meet  again  very 
often,  and  which  is  a  novelty  of  the  Louis  XVI 
epoch.  The  general  appearance  of  this  little  glazed 
armoire  has  all  the  rectilinear  effect  typical  of  the 
end  of  the  style. 

The  other  forms  of  panelled  furniture  remain 
what  they  were  of  old,  except  for  certain  super- 
ficial changes;  the  corner  cupboard  (Fig.  15)  has 
no  longer  its  serpentine  front,  but  one  with  very 
slight  relief  in  a  ressault  or  forepart  of  shallow 
projection,  when  it  is  not  altogether  straight  and 
flat.  The  surfaces  of  the  flattened  angles  are 
decorated  with  grooves  imitated  in  marquetry; 
the  keyhole  is  more  than    simple,  although   the 


56  LOUIS   XVI    FURNITURE 

piece  itself  is  of  sufficiently  exquisite  workman- 
ship. The  vitrine  of  Fig.  14,  the  drop-front 
escritoire  (Fig.  16),  the  bonheiir  dii  Jour  with  its 
roll-top  front  (Fig.  17),  the  commode  (Fig.  18) 
have  the  same  plain  keyholes  that  are  in  har- 
^       mony  with  their  angular  austereness. 

The  secretaire  a  ahattant  is  one  of  the 
/^  favourite  pieces  of  this  epoch.  Here  is  the  classic 
shape  (Fig.  16)  with  its  typical  frieze  of  entrelacs 
a  rosaces  in  gilded  bronze,  the  chutes  of  tri- 
glyphs  and  gouttes^  the  keyholes  (in  the  doors  of 
the  lower  part)  of  the  most  favoured  contem- 
porary model — a  medallion  surmounted  by  a  bow 
and  with  two  pendant  garlands.  The  marquetry, 
at  the  same  time  refined  and  naive  in  crafts- 
manship, presents  a  curious  design  of  a  formal 
French  garden,  with  pavilions  and  fountain  of 
over  fanciful  proportions. 

That  is  the  large  drop-front  escritoire,  a  serious, 
rather  masculine  piece ;  but  the  cabinet-makers 
had  invented  a  crowd  of  quite  small  kinds,  for 
ladies,  in  which  they  had  given  play  to  all  their 
ingenuity  and  their  sense  of  slightly  affected 
grace.  These  small  models  are  often  lightened 
at  the  top  by  detached  miniature  columns  or 
corner  caryatids  of  gilded  brass ;  the  cupboard 
in  the  lower  part  is  done  away  with,  replaced  by 
four  spindle  legs,  joined  either  by  a  shelf  with  a 
piece  hollowed  out  in  front  or  by  X-shaped 
cross  bars  with  interlacing  curves.  The  costliest 
of  these  small  boudoir  pieces  have  a  Sevres  plaque 
inlaid  in  the  flap,  and  tiny  bronzes,  sometimes  of 


LOUIS   XVI    COMMODE   S7 

incredible  finenesss ;  nothing  more  delicately 
feminine  could  be  imagined.  In  sum,  it  is  merely 
a  return,  in  miniature,  to  the  shape  of  the  seven- 
teenth-century cabinet  mounted  on  legs. 

Louis  XVI  commodes  have  a  great  diversity  V^ 
of  shapes.  To  begin  w^ith,  we  can  distinguish 
two  great  families :  commodes  with  three  drawers 
or  rows  of  drawers,  and  those  that  have  only 
two.  The  latter  are  much  the  lighter  and  more 
elegant ;  they  are  called  commodes  a  pieds  Sieves. 
If  they  have  retained  the  pieds  de  btche  of  the 
Louis  XV  epoch,  while  more  or  less  diminishing 
their  curve,  they  can  be  extremely  graceful ; 
with  their  happy  combination  of  straight  lines 
and  curves,  uniting  the  qualities  of  both  styles, 
they  are,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  elegant  pieces 
of  furniture  that  have  ever  been  devised.  The 
commode  we  have  photographed  (Fig.  i8)  is 
particularly  delightful  for  its  proportions,  and 
thanks  to  the  excellent  bronzes  of  its  legs  and  its 
rmceau^  which  have  preserved  something  of  the 
easy  suppleness  of  the  Louis  XV  Style.  This 
other  one  (Fig.  19)  also  has  a  charm  of  its  own, 
in  spite  of  the  rigidity  of  its  terminal-shaped 
fluted  legs.  The  projection,  with  double  ressault, 
of  its  fagade  is  enough  to  make  it  interesting, 
and  the  pierced  brass  of  its  keyholes  and  handles 
are  of  very  good  design. 

Let  us  remark  in  this  connection  that,  in  the 
period  we  are  discussing,  the  handles  of  drawers 
or  mains ^  are  nearly  always  mains  pendanteSy 
drop  handles ;  they   are  very  often  rectangular 


58  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

and  of  absolute  simplicity  (Figs.  21,  25)  ;  but 
the  most  frequent  form  is  that  of  the  ring 
handle  framing  a  circular  ;//o///" which,  on  simple 
pieces,  is  a  plaque  of  embossed  brass  (Figs.  22,  23). 
The  keyholes  are  then  similar  plaques.  Sometimes 
the  plaque  is  oval,  and  the  handle  is  merely  a 
half  ring  (Fig.  26).  As  for  mains  fixes  or  fixed 
handles,  these  are  garlands  fastened  to  bows  that 
hold  up  medallions  (Fig,  20)  or  else  held  by  the 
teeth  of  two  lion  masks. 

The  Provengal  commode  with  two  drawers,  in 
Fig.  24,  is  contemporary  with  the  revolutionary 
armoire  we  have  already  mentioned,  and  it  also 
carries  in  one  of  the  entrelacs  of  the  bottom 
traverse  the  crosier,  the  sword,  and  the  spade 
with  the  Phrygian  cap,  the  symbols  of  the  three 
estates.  The  drapery  motif  is  here  interpreted 
naively,  but  in  a  very  decorative  fashion. 

Commodes  with  three  lines  of  drawers  of 
necessity  owe  a  sufficiently  heavy  aspect  to  their 
construction,  and  nevertheless  there  are  some  of 
them  which,  raising  themselves  a  little  on  pieds 
de  biche  (Fig.  23),  arrive  at  a  certain  elegance. 
That  in  Fig.  20,  which  is  a  country  made  com- 
mode from  the  south-west,  testifies  to  a  fairly 
extensive  research  ;  the  craftsman,  while  remain- 
ing strictly  faithful  to  the  straight  line,  has 
endeavoured  to  lighten  the  shape  by  contracting 
the  base,  in  imitation  of  the  Louis  XV  commodes 
called  en  console. 

The  construction  of  commodes  is  sometimes 
more  complicated.     The  cabinet-maker,  anxious 


AN  ERROR  IN  DECORATION  59 

to  avoid  the  aspect  of  a  brutally  square  case, 
added  to  the  right  and  the  left  quadrant-shaped 
shelves ;  in  that  case^  to  lighten  his  piece  still 
further  and,  so  to  speak,  give  it  air,  he  put  a 
mirror  back  to  the  compartments  formed  in  this 
way  at  the  sides.  We  have  seen  that  these 
shelves  may  be  replaced  by  little  armoires  with 
curved  doors ;  or  indeed  the  commode  is 
frankly  a  half-moon,  the  drawers  being  them- 
selves convex  also  ;  a  very  graceful  shape,  perfect 
to  adorn  the  space  between  two  windows  in 
default  of  a  console  pier  glass.  If  in  the  half- 
moon  commode  only  the  top  drawers  are  re- 
tained, and  the  lower  ones  replaced  by  two 
shelves  with  brass  galleries  and  mirror  back,  we 
have  what  the  dealers  called  a  commode 
otcverte  a  Panglaise. 

A  fault  common  to  many  fine  commodes  of 
the  Louis  XVI  Style,  is  that  the  decoration  of 
their  facade  is  treated  without  taking  into  account 
the  division  of  the  drawers,  this  being  disguised 
as  much  as  possible  by  the  exact  fitting  of  the 
bronzes  or  the  marquetry  designs  which  continue 
from  one  drawer  to  the  other.  Cabinet-makers 
who  were  so  pre-occupied  with  architecture  and 
its  laws  never  should  have  fallen  into  this  error 
of  logic,  for  the  first  duty  of  a  facade,  in  good 
architecture,  is  to  show  distinctly  the  divisions 
within.  J  It  is  true  that  before  their  eyes  they  had 
illustrious  examples  of  falsehoods  like  that  of  their 
furniture  pieces ;  the  fagades  of  the  two  palaces 
of  the  Garde-Meubles,  built  by  Gabriel,  at  the 


60  LOUIS  XVI  FURNITURE 

entrance  to  the  Rue  Royale.  The  little  com- 
mode in  Fig.  18  has,  to  some  extent,  this  fault, 
but  lessened  by  the  presence  of  two  very  obvious 
and  visible  keyholes,  which  frankly  declare  the 
existence  of  the  two  drawers ;  it  is  true  that  the 
lower  keyhole  is  at  fault  in  partly  hiding  the 
principal  motif  of  the  marquetry. 

The  developments  of  the  commode  devised 
under  Louis  XV  became  more  and  more 
elaborate ;  chtffonnieres  with  five  or  six  drawers 
one  upon  another,  fluted  pillars  at  the  corners, 
toupie  feet,  marble  tops  with  open-work  galleries ; 
very  handsome  pieces,  and  so  practical !  (Fig.  25) 
and  secretaires- commodes^  then  known  as 
commodes  a  dessiis  brise  (Fig.  26),  whose 
shape,  something  too  geometrical,  does  not 
escape  clumsiness,  unless  it  is  refined  by  pieds 
de  biche. 

Louis  XVI  tables  have  vertical  legs  and 
straight  frames,''*'  without  festoons ;  that  is  what 
distinguishes  them  from  Louis  XV  tables  at  the 
first  glance.  Nevertheless,  even  more  than  for 
commodes,  the  pied  de  biche  of  less  generous 
curve  was  retained  sufficiently  long  for  small 
work  tables,  breakfast  tables,  and  gueridons. 

These  vertical  legs  are  of  different  kinds. ^ 
Some  of  them  are  square  in  section,  tapering  off 
towards  the  foot  (Fig.  28)  ;  these  are  called 
iieds  en  gaine^  terminal-shaped  (from  the  name 

*  What  w«  say  here  of  table  legs  applies  also  to  the  leg»  of 
chairs. 


CHARACTERISTIC  LEGS  6i 

of  the  bust-carrying  pedestals  which  are  of  the 
same  shape) ;  they  often  end  in  projecting  dice- 
shaped  feet ;  there  are  round  legs,  turned,  slightly 
conic,  with  a  gorge  moulding  at  the  top,  and 
another  projecting  moulding  at  the  foot ;  they 
are  fluted  vertically,  with  or  without  rudentures^ 
sometimes  in  a  spiral.  That  is  the  classic  type. 
Above  the  moulding  at  the  top,  a  part  square  of 
section,  stouter,  decorated  with  fluting  or  a 
rectangular  rosace  (Figs.  27,  28,  29,  etc.),  is 
joined  with  tenon  and  mortise  to  the  cross  pieces 
of  the  frame.  Far  from  being  disguised,  this 
necessary  reinforcement  is,  in  well-planned 
tables,  accentuated  by  the  decoration.  Round 
fluted  legs  are  often  called  pieds  en  carquois^ 
quiver  legs,  even  when  there  is  no  representation 
of  arrow  feathers  at  the  top.  Towards  the  end 
of  the  Louis  XVI  period  many  legs  are  no  longer 
fluted,  but  furnished  below  with  a  brass  shoe 
with  mouldings,  above  with  a  ring-capital  in  plain 
brass  or  engine-turned;  the  '' tete  du  pied^^^ 
as  cabinet-makers  call  it  by  a  bold  metaphor,  is 
then  decorated  with  a  small  plaque  of  brass,  either 
striated  or  engine-turned.  Other  more  elaborate 
legs  imitate  a  bundle  of  arrows  or  pikes,  fastened 
by  ribbons  intercrossed ;  the  feathers  and  the 
heads  then  serve  as  motifs  for  the  ornamented 
parts  at  the  top  and  the  bottom.  The  use  of 
castors  is  becoming  general. 

Louis  XV  tables  dispensed  as  much  as  possible 
with  cross  pieces  between  the  legs,  for  they 
seldom  harmonised  with  the  continuous   Hne  of 


62  LOUIS   XVI    FURNITURE 

the  pzeds  de  biche\  they  re-appear  under  Louis 
XVl  ;  they  are  even  frequently  more  complicated 
and  elaborate  than  is  needed  for  solidity  and 
strength,  and  their  complex  lines  play  an  import- 
ant part  in  the  decoration.  Their  join  with  each 
leg  is  always  very  openly  made  with  a  stout 
square  piece. 

The  frame  of  the  table  is  decorated  with 
fluting  (Fig.  28),  with  entrelacs  (Fig.  29),  with 
framing  lines  of  marquetry  (Fig.  27).  The  table 
top  is  no  longer  wavy  in  outline,  but  round, 
oval,  sometimes  haricot-shaped  (or  kidney-shaped), 
rectangular,  square  ;  in  the  last  two  cases  it  may 
have  at  each  corner  a  projection,  round  or  square, 
according  to  the  kind  of  leg  that  is  below  it. 

Extending  dining  tables,  invented  quite  at  the 
end  of  the  preceding  epoch,  under  the  name  of 
tables  a  Paiiglaise^  are  .still  fairly  uncommon  ; 
they  are  round  or  oval,  with  leaves. 

Consoles  have  a  great  diversity  of  aspect, 
being  meant  to  harmonise  with  widely  different 
kinds  of  decoration  for  apartments.  The  most 
simple  type,  but  not  the  least  elegant,  is  a  half- 
moon,  with  two  vertical  feet  and  a  stretcher  in  the 
shape  of  a  horizontal  concave  arch,  adorned  in  the 
middle  with  a  motif  which  is  most  frequently 
an  "antique"  urn.  The  console  of  Fig.  32  is 
an  excellent  model,  excellent  in  its  perfect 
simplicity.  Most  commonly  these  handsome 
pieces  are  enriched  with  garlands  of  flowers, 
bouquets,  bows  of  ribbons  (Fig.  31).  Other  con- 
soles, richer  still,  and  more  architectural  in  style. 


CARD  TABLES  63 

like  the  elegant  model  made  of  gilt  wood,  shown 
in  Fig.  33,  remarkable  for  the  large  design  of  its 
decoration,  have  legs  that  come  very  near  to 
the  consoles  of  architecture  properly  so  called. 
Another  type  is  that  of  the  console  with  four  legs, 
joined  by  stretchers  or  a  shelf  between  them,  half- 
moon  or  rectangular  in  shape  ;  when  it  is  of  this  last 
shape  it  is  in  reality  nothing  more  than  a  slightly 
tall  table  made  to  be  seen  only  on  three  sides. 

Card  tables  (Fig.  27)  had  nearly  all  been 
invented  under  Louis  XV ;  we  will  not  describe 
here  all  their  different  shapes.  But  there  is  one 
very  well  known  one  that  properly  belongs  to 
the  epoch  now  under  review :  the  table-bouillotte^ 
a  shape  that  became  highly  popular,  and  of 
which  authentic  examples  can  still  be  found 
easily  enough.  The  game  of  bouillotte  was  a 
kind  of  brelan,  played  very  quickly ;  but  the 
bouillotte  table,  an  exceedingly  practical  one,  can 
be  used  for  many  other  things  besides  cards.  It 
is  round,  has  a  marble  top  with  brass  gallery; 
its  four  legs  are  ^'  quiver  "-shaped :  its  frame 
contains  two  little  drawers  and  two  pull-out 
shelves  (Fig.  30). 

Now  comes  the  large  family  of  quite  small 
fancy  tables  such  as  no  woman  worthy  of  the 
name  could  possibly  do  without  having  around 
her  ;  and  here  is  the  triumph  of  this  delicate 
Louis  XVI  Style.  Here  again,  nearly  everything 
had  been  said  and  there  was  hardly  any  novelty 
to  be  introduced.  The  toilet  table  changes 
nothing    but  the  line  of  its  legs ;   alongside   it 


64  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

appears  the  athenienne^  an  antique  tripod,  made 
of  metal,  supporting  a  vase  of  malachite  or 
crystal;  the  Pompeiian  Style  is  indispensable, 
and  hence  we  have  sphinxes,  cloven  hoofs,  swans, 
rams'  heads,  etc.  The  chiffonmere  (Figs.  36  and 
37)  which  offers  every  intermediate  shape 
between  a  simple  table  and  a  small  commode, 
is  nearly  always  provided  with  a  brass  gallery, 
useful  to  keep  bobbins  and  needle-cases  from 
rolling  on  to  the  floor.  Here  is  a  new  word  for 
the  cabinet-makers'  vocabulary  :  the  tricoteuse. 
Now  it  is  a  chiffonnilre  whose  top  is  surrounded 
with  a  pretty  high  wall  of  gilt  brass  trellis  to  keep 
the  balls  of  wool  within  bounds ;  now  a  work 
table,  exactly  like  those  of  to-day,  with  a  top  that 
lifts  up,  lined  with  a  mirror,  and  compartments 
inside  ;  in  a  word,  a  toilette  not  greatly  modified. 
Did  society  ladies  knit  then?  Certainly,  and  the 
ci-devant  marquises  could  have  given  lessons  to 
those  sinister  harridans,  the  knitting  women  that 
used  to  sit  by  at  their  trial  before  the  revolution- 
ary tribunals.  Let  us  not  forget  that  benevolence 
and  good  works  was  the  rule,  the  proper  form, 
and  the  mania  for  knitting  garments  for  the  poor 
was  already  raging.  The  breakfast  table  or 
chocolate  table  is  a  gueridon  wiah  two  tiers ;  the 
lower  table  is  carried  by  four  legs,  the  top  by  one 
pillar  in  the  centre ;  it  is  exceedingly  ugly,  a 
design  that  went  wrong.  Many  of  these  tables — 
for  the  evil  itch  of  writing  is  universal, — are 
provided  with  a  pull-out  shelf  and  a  little  drawer 
on  the    right  hand  containing  a  writing  desk; 


WRITING   TABLES         65 

or  indeed,  the  top  drawer  of  a  chifonniere  has  a 
sliding  top  inlaid  with  morocco  leather,  in 
place  of  the  shelf.  For  these  light  tables  new 
shapes  of  legs  have  been  invented,  lyre-shaped 
or  crossed  like  an  X ;  as  for  the  top  it  is  fre- 
quently oval. 

Here  is  a  completely  new  kind  of  table :  the 
table  d,  Jleiirs^  which  will  not  be  called  a 
jardiniere  till  later.  People  have  read  Rousseau, 
everyone  admires  nature,  botanises  perhaps ;  in 
any  case  loves  to  go,  wearing  a  big  hat  in  the 
fashion  of  Madame  Vigee  Lebrun,  and  gather 
blossoms  at  the  hour  when  Aurora  has  scattered 
over  the  meads  all  the  pearls  from  off  her  tresses ; 
and  then  it  is  discovered  that  the  porcelain 
fteurs  de  Vtncennes^  with  their  foliage  of 
painted  copper,  are  perhaps  no  more  beautiful 
than  the  natural  ones ;  in  short,  one  adores 
flowers,  and  that  is  when  one  takes  it  into  one's 
head  to  adorn  one's  dwelling  continually  with 
cut  flowers  and  living  flowers.  The  jardiniere 
from  the  start  found  the  shape  it  still  has  to-day ; 
it  was  often  decorated  with  Sevres  plaques. 

There  remain  the  writing  tables,  their  deriva- 
tives and  their  hybrids.  The  great  flat  bureau  of 
the  time  of  Louis  XV,  v^th  or  without  the  bout 
de  bureau  or  pigeon-holes  for  papers,  is  still 
made,  though  much  less  frequent ;  the  roll  top 
bureau,  so  extremely  useful  and  practical,  has 
dethroned  it.  A  new  shape,  which  will  later 
become  the  heavy  bureau-ministre^  makes  its 
appearance,  a  flat  bureau  provided  to  left  and 


66  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

right  of  the  space  for  the  writer's  knees  with 
drawers  one  above  the  other  ;  if  they  come  down 
to  the  ground  it  is  altogether  our  bureau- 
ministre^  and  it  is  not  a  thing  of  beauty.  If  the 
sides  do  not  come  so  low,  they  are  carried  on 
eight  legs ;  and  there  we  are,  back  again  to  the 
bureau  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  It  goes  as  far 
as  combining  the  round  top  with  the  drawers 
coming  down  to  the  ground ;  and  this  is  nothing 
more  or  less  than  our  "  American  bureau  " ;  so 
true  it  is  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the 
sun. 

The  small  ladies'  bureaux  are  very  varied. 
Some  are  flat,  some  round-topped;  the  most 
popular  is  the  bonheur  dujour^  which  was  indeed 
in  existence  at  the  end  of  the  Louis  XV  epoch, 
but  had  not  as  yet  any  special  name.  The 
bonheur  dujour  is  a  writing  table  that  carries  on 
top,  set  back,  a  small  armoire.  This  is  usually 
glazed,  or  fitted  with  mirrors,  or  indeed  with 
imitation  backs  of  books ;  above  is  the  inevitable 
white  marble  with  its  brass  gallery.  For  writing 
there  is  a  pull-out  shelf,  or  a  hinged  shelf  that 
opens  forward,  or  a  drawer  with  a  top  in  the 
shape  of  a  writing  board.  And  there  are 
bonheurs  dujour  with  roll  top  (Fig.  17) ;  others 
are  ^  pente^  as  it  is  called  to-day,  that  is  to  say 
with  a  flap  that  occupies  a  sloping  position  when 
the  bureau  is  closed. 

Straining  for  novelties,  the  cabinet-makers 
invent  the  most  ingenious  but  most  bizarre 
combinations.     We  see  advertised,  for  instance,  a 


STRANGE   COMBINATIONS    67 

''roll  top  toilette,  that  can  be  used  by  a  lady  as 
an  escritoire,  with  two  small  strong-boxes  and  a 
white  marble  top,"  or  what  is  still  better,  a 
^'  table  de  nuit  that  can  be  used  as  a  writing 
table,  and  as  a  stove  in  winter  !  " 


CHAPTER   III:    CHAIRS  AND 
VARIOUS  PIECES  :  A  LOUIS 
XVI  INTERIOR 

Perfection,  from  the  point  of  viev^  of  comfort, 
had  been  reached  by  the  chairs  of  Louis  XV's 
time ;  those  of  the  following  period,  less  roomy 
and  more  angular,  are  rather  inferior  in  this 
regard.  On  the  other  hand,  they  are  more  varied 
in  shape  and  ornament.  As  with  all  the  other 
kinds  of  furniture,  the  essential  difference  is  that 
the  Louis  XV  chairs  have  not  one  single  line  that 
-^j  can  be  called  straight,  while  the  Louis  XVI  chairs 
*  always  have  at  least  their  legs  rectilinear.  The 
frame  of  the  chair  is  straight  behind,  most  fre- 
quently curved  at  the  sides  and  front  (Figs.  38, 
39,  etc.).  Certain  types  have  their  seat  horse- 
shoe shaped  (Fig.  56);  others  circular  (Fig.  43); 
but  there  are  some  also  in  which  it  is  trapeze- 
shaped,  without  a  single  curve  (Figs.  45,  46). 
Another  important  difference  is  that,  all  the  parts, 
all  the  ^Uimbs "  of,  for  example,  an  arm-chair,  arc 
at  the  same  time  united  and  separated  by  well 
marked  joints  (always  the  architectural  influ- 
ence), while  a  Louis  XV  arm-chair  is,  like  a  living 
creature,  all  made  up  of  continuous  curves. 

The  legs,  like  the  legs  of  tables,  are  terminal- 
shaped  (though  not  often),  or  turned  and 
'' quiver  "-shaped  and  fluted  either  vertically 
(Figs.  38,  39,  etc.)  or  spirally  (Fig.  40).    The 

68 


CHAIRS   AND   SKIRTS     69 

top  part  of  the  leg  is  a  cube  decorated  on  two 
faces  with  a  square  rosace  of  acanthus  leaf 
(Fig.  40),  later  by  a  marguerite  (Fig.  47),  or  a 
design  of  circular  mouldings  (Fig.  43).  Towards 
the  end  of  the  period  appear  back  legs  square  of 
section,  curved  outwards,  and  with  their  line 
directly  continued  by  the  uprights  of  the  back ; 
this  is  a  first  discreet  imitation  of  the  Greek 
shapes  (Fig.  55).^ 

The  frame  is  decorated  with  simple  mouldings 
(Fig.  41),  or  carved  with  one  of  those  running 
ornaments  we  have  described,  rang  de  perles 
(Fig.  40),  rang  de  feuilles  (Fig.  52),  rang  dd 
piastres  (Fig.  51) ;  or  it  is  decorated  with  a  bow 
of  ribbon  or  a  rosace  in  the  middle  of  the  front 
(Figs.  43,  44,  47). 

The  arms,  or  accotoirs^  always  provided  with 
manchetteSy*  are  attached  to  the  back  by  a  more 
or  less  graceful  curve,  which  may  even  begin  at 
the  very  top  of  the  uprights  of  the  back 
(Fig.  38) ;  this  arrangement  is  sufficiently  un- 
graceful. They  end  in  front  in  a  volute  of  no 
great  importance,  under  which  the  console  de 
Vaccotoir^  the  vertical  support  of  the  arm,  joins 
it.  Certain  very  ornate  armchairs  (Fig.  38)  have 
lions'  heads  at  this  point,  which  is  a  jump  of 
fifty  years  backwards.  During  the  Regency 
women  wore  skirts  with  panniers,  which  brought 
about  the  invention  of  arm-chairs  with  set  back 

*  The  back  of  this  same  chair  (Fig.  55)  already  shows  the 
shovel  shape— <r«  ^^//tf— which  will  be  a  characteristic  of  the 
Directoire  period. 


70  LOUIS  XVI   FURNITURE 

consoles,  consoles  reculees.  During  the  reign  of 
Louis  XVI  the  panniers  did  not  diminish,  but 
very  much  the  contrary ;  however,  consoles 
reculees  are  now  only  made  very  rarely  (Fig.  43). 
It  is,  nevertheless,  essential  that  panniers  may  be 
able  to  spread  themselves  comfortably,  and  for 
that  purpose,  from  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Louis  XV,  consoles  have  been  invented  that 
do  indeed  continue  the  top  of  the  leg  but 
immediately  turn  both  outward  and  back  to  leave 
the  front  of  the  arm-chair  clear.  This  arrange- 
ment still  exists  under  Louis  XVI  (Fig.  47),  but 
only  for  very  luxurious  and  costly  chairs,  as 
the  cutting  out  of  these  consoles  with  their 
double  curve  is  difficult  and  requires  a  great  deal 
of  wood.  The  ordinary  console  (Figs.  38,  etc.)  is 
cut  in  the  shape  of  an  S,  but  only  curved  in  one 
plane ;  it  is  often  decorated  at  the  base  with  an 
acanthus  leaf  (Figs.  38,  40,  etc.).  A  little  later 
the  pannier  fashion  passes,  and  at  once  the 
upright  consoles,  consoles  montantes  of  earlier 
times,  reappear  under  the  shape  of  balusters 
(Fig.  46).  It  is  not  easy  for  this  kind  of  consoles 
d^accotoirs  to  be  elegant ;  the  meeting  of  the 
base  of  the  baluster  with  the  top  of  the  leg  is 
often  very  clumsy. 

The  back  may  have  the  most  varied  shapes. 
If  it  is  slightly  hollowed  out,  whatever  its  shape 
the  arm-chair  is  said  to  be  en  cabriolet.  The 
medallion  back  (which  was  already  in  ex- 
istence at  the  end  of  the  Louis  XV  epoch)  is 
oval ;  it  is  one  of  the   most  widespread  shapes 


BERGERES  71 

(Figs.  41,  43,  44).  It  is  often  decorated  at  the 
top  with  a  bow  of  ribbon  (Figs.  43,  44),  recall- 
ing the  bow  by  means  of  which  a  medallion  or 
an  oval  frame  for  an  engraving,  a  picture  or  a 
mirror  was  hung.  A  delicate  point  for  the 
elegance  of  the  line  as  well  as  for  strength  is 
the  connection  between  the  oval  and  the  legs  at 
the  back  of  the  chair.  The  joining  pieces  are 
curved  outward,  or  more  rarely  inward ;  as 
always  the  concave  curve  is  more  agreeable  to 
the  eye  than  the  convex  curve.  There  are 
fiddle-shaped  backs,  as  in  the  time  of  Louis  XV 
(Fig.  42) ;  there  are  some  that  are  frankly  square 
(Figs.  45,  46),  or  square  with  chamfered  angles 
(Fig.  40),  others  have  the  uprights  vertical  or 
slightly  diverging  and  the  top  cross  piece  arched ; 
or  they  are  rectangular,  with  the  upper  angles  of 
the  rectangle  indented  (Figs.  38,  39) ;  they  are 
then  called  dossiers  en  chapeau^  "  hat  "  backs, 
particularly  when  the  top  is  slightly  arched,  with 
a  gadroon  moulding  in  relief  on  the  indented 
angles.  In  these  last  backs  the  uprights,  which 
are  sometimes  slender  columns  detached  from 
the  actual  framework  of  the  back,  terminate  in 
carved  motifs;  pine  cones,  berries,  plumes  of 
feathers  exactly  like  those  on  beds  and  catafalques 
(Fig.  39)  or  inverted  stems  of  acanthus  leaves 
(Fig.  48). 

Bergcres  continue  to  be  very  popular;  with 
their  down  mattress-cushions,  their  ample,  deep 
shape,  their  solid  sides  [Jones  pleines)^  they  are 
always  the  cosiest,  softest  and  most  comfortable  of 


72  LOUIS  XVI   FURNITURE 

seats.  Most  bergeres  are  very  little  different 
from  arm-chairs  (Figs.  50,  5 1) ;  others  are  gondola- 
shaped,  that  is  to  say,  with  rounded  back  and 
showing  a  continuous  line  from  the  tip  of  one 
arm  to  that  of  the  other ;  still  others  are 
confessional-shaped  or  "  eared  ''  (Fig.  59). 

All  the  seats  of  which  we  have  just  been 
speaking  have  upholstered  backs ;  but  many 
costly  chairs  were  made,  even  gilded  chairs,  with 
backs  all  of  wood  and  open- worked  (Figs.  50  to  61). 
The  most  popular  motif  for  these  open  designs 
was  the  lyre  (Figs.  54,  59  to  61),  and  next  the 
corbeil  de  vannerie^  more  or  less  simplified  and 
given  a  conventional  style  (Fig.  56),  the  terminal 
shape  with  mouldings  and  carved  (Fig.  53),  etc. 
There  were  even  seen,  at  the  time  of  the  earliest 
balloon  ascents,  backs  en  montgolfilre.  These 
chairs  were  fairly  often  covered  in  leather  for 
dining  rooms  and  offices,  or  else  caned  and  made 
of  mahogany.* 

Cane-seated  chairs  meant  to  have  carreaux^ 
square  cushions  filled  with  hair  or  down,  and 
covered  with  stuff  or  morocco  leather,  are  not 
of  any  shape  peculiar  to  themselves,  except 
"  toilet  arm-chairs,"  whose  low  back,  done  with 
cane  like  the  seat,  is  round  and  gondola-shaped  ; 
their  seat  is  circular. 

A  kind  of  chair  that  gains  greatly  under 
Louis  XVI  in  refinement  and  elegance  is  the 
modest  arm-chairs  and  ordinary  chairs  of  straw," 

*  Mahogany  chairs  are  an  innovation  introduced  in  this  period, 

*  They  were  also  styled  a  la  capucine. 


STRAW  CHAIRS  7^ 

made  by  turners  and  not  by  joiners ;  but  we 
have  seen  that  the  two  trade  guilds  were  then 
amalgamating  into  one.  The  most  ordinary  of 
these  chairs  (Figs.  6i,  63),  simply  turned  with 
no  carving  whatever,  may,  thanks  to  their  happy 
proportions  and  pure  lines,  have  a  real  artistic 
value;  they  are  distinguished  from  their  Louis 
XV  predecessors  only  by  the  "  hat "  design  of 
the  cross  pieces  of  the  back.  The  seat  is 
equipped  with  a  flat  square  cushion  fastened  to 
the  four  corners  with  tapes,  and  the  back  with 
a  loose  cover  over  the  traverses,  or  a  square 
cushion  fastened  with  tapes  in  the  same  way. 

The  somewhat  more  refined  models,  which  in- 
clude carving,  or  at  least  a  certain  amount  of 
fluting  (Figs.  59,  60,  etc.),  are  sometimes  exquisite 
in  their  simplicity  of  invention  and  the  rustic 
flavour  of  the  style  of  the  carving.  Of  course, 
those  that  have  decorated  backs  must  not  be 
equipped  with  more  than  a  cushion  for  the  seat. 
The  "  sheaf "  back  is  well  known,  with  its 
graceful  bundle  of  rods  spreading  out  in  fan 
shape  (Fig.  64) ;  the  arcaded  back  {a  arcatures) 
has  spindle-shaped  and  fluted  slender  shafts ;  the 
upper  traverse  is  "hat  "-shaped  or  with  pediment, 
and  carved  by  means  of  the  hollow  gouge ;  the 
lyre  back  is  popular  (Figs.  59  to  61) ;  the  arrises 
are  often  beaded,  which  gives  the  line  more  life. 
The  horse-shoe  back  of  Fig  61  is  unusually 
elegant  ;  and  in  any  case  it  is  a  type  that  is 
not  often  met  with. 

The  edge  of  a  straw  seat,  and  the  under  sur- 


5^4  Louis  xvi  furniture 

face,  which  is  always  rough,  have  nothing  elegant 
about  them  ;  they  are  disguised  in  the  front  by 
a  fillet  of  thin  wood,  which  is  nevertheless 
missing  in  the  simplest  shapes  (Fig.  63),  or 
actually  rather  eccentrically  placed  where  it  has 
no  reason  to  be,  some  three  inches  underneath 
the  scat,  in  the  guise  of  a  strengthening  cross-bar 
for  the  front  legs.  This  cross  piece  is  fluted  and 
sometimes  (Fig.  62)  carved.  Straw  chairs  are 
made  of  oak,  of  walnut,  and  most  frequently  of 
cherry  wood;  this  modest,  home-grown  wood 
sometimes  has  acquired  a  polish,  a  warm  reddish 
patina  that  the  finest  mahogany  might  well  envy. 

The  lyre-backed  chair  of  Fig.  59  is  a  very 
modest  one,  very  ordinary.  And  yet  who  knows 
what  price  this  relic  would  reach  at  a  sale  ?  For 
it  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  very  chair  on 
which  Marie  Antoinette  used  to  sit  in  her  cell  at 
the  Conciergerie. 

Canapes  are  naturally  of  similar  shapes  to 
arm-chairs,  their  backs  are  square,  "  hat"-shaped, 
medallion-shaped ;  their  arm  consoles  are  curved 
backwards,  or  vertical  in  the  shape  of  balusters,* 
the  side  pieces  are  full  or  open.  Those  with  full 
side  pieces  are  ottomans,  rectangular  or  trapeze- 
shaped.  There  are  ottomans  with  medallion 
backs  and  curved  side  pieces ;  others,  again,  have 
preserved  the  graceful  lines  of  the  round  "basket  "- 
shaped  ottomans  of  the  Louis  XV  period.    There 

*  Fig.  I.— The  balusters  of  this  very  elegant  canape  end  in 
crosiers,  which  indicates  the  extreme  end  of  the  style.  We  shall 
find  them  again  in  beds,  benches,  etc.,  belonging  to  the  succeed- 
ing period ;  they  go  with  rolled  backs  or  side  pieces. 


THE   LIT   D'ANGE         75 

is  one  quite  novel  shape  ;  the  very  large  canaph^ 
called  confidents^  which  at  both  ends  are  flanked 
with  two  supplementary  quadrant-shaped  pieces 
outside  the  arms. 

There  is  nothing  particular  to  be  said  of  the 
chaises  longues,  or  duchesses^  of  this  period ;  they 
continue  to  be  made  in  one  piece  (Fig.  70),  or 
brtsees^  either  in  two  pieces  of  equal  length 
(Fig.  71),  each  of  which  is  by  itself  a  little  chaise 
longue,  or  in  two  unequal  pieces,  a  bergere  and 
a  long  bench  seat  (Fig.  72) ;  or,  again,  in  three 
pieces ;  two  similar  bergeres  and  a  square  stool 
with  two  hollowed  sides,  into  which  the  bergeres 
fit  closely. 

Louis  XVI  beds  are  not  so  scarce  as  those 
belonging  to  the  earlier  period,  because  little  by 
little  the  habit  of  completely  covering  up  the 
wood  with  stuff  was  dying  out ;  the  wood,  being 
visible,  was  decorated,  and  has  been  preserved. 
Every  shape  of  bed  continues  to  be  in  use  :  ^  la 
Polonaise^  a  Vlmperiale^  a  Pltaltenne^  and 
^  la  Tut  que ;  the  upholsterers  rack  their  brains 
to  create  new  shapes :  h  la  Paniirge^  a  la  Mill- 
taire^  even  to  beds  h  la  tombeau  retrouss&  h  la 
Chinoise.  There  is  also  a  revival  of  types  that 
were  out  of  fashion  under  Louis  XV,  like  the 
four-poster  bed,  a  charming  specimen  of  which 
is  reproduced  as  a  frontispiece  to  this  volume, 
hung  with  satin  striped  in  yellow  and  green,  with 
red  lines,  highly  characteristic.  But  the  type 
most  frequently  met  with  was  the  "angel  "  bed, 
the  lit  d^ange^  meant  to  be  seen  end-wise,  and 


76  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

with  two  equal  or  nearly  equal  dossiers  at  head 
and  foot  (Figs.  75  and  76).  These  dossiers  affect 
the  same  shape  as  those  of  arm-chairs,  they  are 
square,  arched  with  "  basket  handle "  design 
(Fig.  76),  "hat  "-shaped  (Fig.  75),  etc. 

The  legs  are  either  en  gaine — terminal-shaped 
or  quiver-shaped  and  fluted,  the  uprights  of  the 
dossiers  are  square  fluted  pilasters,  or  again  they 
are  detached  pillars  or  balusters ;  and  the  tops 
of  the  uprights  have  a  fir  cone  (Fig.  76),  a 
pomegranate  or  some  other  turned  motifs  and 
very  often  a  plume  of  feathers.  A  bed  is  styled 
^  la  Polonaise  when  four  iron  rods  spring  from 
the  top  of  the  uprights,  and  at  a  certain  height 
curve  up  to  join  one  another  in  holding  up  a 
crown,  from  which  the  curtains  are  hung ;  one 
wide  piece  of  stuff  forming  the  head  curtain,  and 
two  narrow  widths  falling  along  the  iron  rods, 
towards  the  corners  of  the  foot,  and  gathered 
back  with  bows.  This  is  an  extremely  graceful 
arrangement. 

Screens  are  as  a  rule  simple  and  rectangular, 
the  uprights  sometimes  flanked  by  detached 
^/  pillars  (Fig.  78)  or  slender  balusters ;  the  top 
may  have  any  of  the  variety  of  shapes  seen  in  the 
dossiers  of  arm-chairs  or  beds.  That  shown  in 
Fig.  78  has  the  graceful  "S-shaped"  pediment 
of  the  Louis  XV  armoires ;  it  is  a  memory  of  the 
preceding  style.  They  have  wooden  supports, 
each  made  of  two  consoles  with  acanthus  de- 
signs ;  the  leaf  of  the  screen  is  filled  with  tapestry, 
figured  velvet,  damask,  or  embossed  silk,  less  fre- 


i  V 


MIRRORS  77 

quently  with  those  Chinese  papers  with  figures, 
blown  as  papier s  des  Indes,  that  were  a  craze 
under  Louis  XV, 

The  shape  of  clocks  is  very  little  changed  at 
the  end  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV ;  they  simply 
adopt  the  new  style  of  ornamentation  "  after  the 
Greek."  As  horology,  towards  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  made  very  great  progress — 
the  most  renowned  scientists  did  not  disdain  to 
busy  themselves  with  it — many  fine  clocks  made 
after  1760,  and  so  in  the  Louis  XVI  Style,  have 
very  correct  works  which  even  to-day,  when 
thoroughly  repaired,  can  give  excellent  service. 

An  article  belonging  to  this  period  still  to  be 
found  in  considerable  numbers,  and  one  that  the 
amateur  of  pretty  old  pieces  will  readily  enough 
have  the  pleasure  of  unearthing,  and  which  is 
often  an  exquisite  thing,  is  the  moyenne  or  small 
mirror  in  a  frame  of  gilt  wood.  There  are  three 
principal  types :  first,  the  simple  rectangular 
frame  made  of  a  moulding,  either  quite  plain  or 
with  a  line  of  beading,  a  ribbon  rolled  round  a 
baguet,  etc.,  and  surmounted  by  a  carved  pedi- 
ment called  the  chapiteau.  This  chapiteau 
displays  an  immense  variety.  Now  it  is  a  wreath 
of  laurels  accompanied  by  garlands,  now  a  basket 
of  flowers,  an  antique  vase  adorned  with  garlands, 
now  a  trophy  of  emblems ;  the  quiver,  the  torch, 
and  the  bow  of  Love,  vnth  the  inevitable  billing 
doves;  the  emblems  of  Agriculture,  flail  and 
fork  and  rak^  and  sheaf  of  grain,  etc.  (Fig.  82) ; 
emblems  of  the  pastoral  life,   pipes,    straw  hat 


78   LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

and  crook ;  of  the  chase,  gun,  powder  flask, 
game  bag,  etc.  ;  the  tambourine  and  Provencal 
flageolet  (Fig.  8i),  violin,  flute,  hautbois.  .  .  . 
All  this  almost  always  intertwined  with  flexible 
laurel  boughs  completing  and  lightening  the 
effect,  as  a  leaf  of  asparagus  fern  or  a  spray  of 
gypsophila  does  in  a  well  thought  out  bouquet. 
Certain  of  these  pediments  for  mirrors  are  real 
little  masterpieces  of  composition.  Another  type 
is  more  architectural  (Fig.  83).  The  lower  part 
of  the  frame  is  enlarged  by  two  square  additions 
which  are  certainly  a  reminiscence,  a  distortion  of 
those  reversed  consoles  which  architects  delight 
to  put  at  the  bottom  of  mansarde  windows; 
below  these  are  two  little  consoles  which  seem 
to  support  the  whole  thing,  and  in  fact  allow 
the  glass  to  be  stood  on  top  of  a  commode  or 
chiffonier.  The  pediment  has  two  chutes  of 
garlands  which  come  pretty  well  down  along 
the  frame  and  balance  with  the  projections  of 
the  base.  The  third  type,  finally,  more  un- 
common than  the  others,  is  the  oval  glass, 
medallion  shaped,  surmounted  by  a  bow  of  ribbon, 
a  model  that  has  become  just  a  trifle  tiresome, 
by  dint  of  its  modern  imitations. 

The  articles  of  Louis  XVI  furniture  which 
we  have  now  rapidly  dealt  with  are  those  with 
which  it  is  easiest  to  furnish  a  modern  room. 
The  Louis  XVI  Style  has  in  fact  been  the 
fashion  for  some  years  in  architecture  as  well  as  in 
furniture    and   objets  d^art^  and    most  of  the 


A   LOUIS   XVI  INTERIOR   79 

houses  that  let  flats  are  (or  at  any  rate  claim 
to  be)  built  and  decorated  in  this  style ;  the 
chimney  pieces  of  present-day  Paris  and  the  big 
towns  are  invariably  Louis  XVI,  and  their  lifts  as 
well,  their  composition,  patisseries  or  ornaments 
in  the  ceilings  like  their  electric  switches.  .  .  . 
At  any  rate,  a  mysterious  and  all-powerful  decree 
has  laid  it  down  that  the  panelling  and  the 
doors  of  the  rooms  we  live  in  must  be  uniformly 
white  or  very  light  in  colour ;  now  it  was  under 
Louis  XVI  that  light  colours  were  most  in  favour 
with  architects. 

How  shall  we  manage  to  procure  furniture  of 
this  style  for  a  drawing-room,  a  dining-room,  a 
bedroom  ?  On  this  subject  we  might  profitably 
consult  a  certain  Caillot,  a  writer  something  less 
than  mediocre,  but  a  man  of  much  curiosity  and 
with  well-opened  eyes,  who  had  seen  the  end  of 
the  reign  of  Louis  XVI,  the  Revolution,  the 
Empire,  and  the  Restoration,  when  he  put 
together  his  Memoires  pour  servir  a  Phistoire 
des  moeurs  et  usages  des  Frangais.  First  of 
all,  what  are  the  drawing-room  walls  to  be  covered 
with  ?  We  note  to  begin  with  that  a  simple 
painted  paper  will  not  be  a  solecism,  even  costly 
rooms  were  papered  round  about  1780.  Speaking 
of  a  wealthy  bourgeois  interior  of  the  pre- 
Revolutionary  days,  Caillot  says  :  "  Though 
tapestries  held  their  place  in  the  antechamber, 
they  had  given  way  in  the  drawing-room  to  a 
pretty  painted  paper  of  Arthur's  make."  The 
celebrated  firm  of  Reveillon,  whose  pillage  and 


8o  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

burning  were  the  prelude  to  the  Revolution, 
supplied  the  whole  of  Europe  with  papers,  which 
were  largely  made  by  hand  and  were  veritable 
works  of  art.  But  although  now-a-days  excellent 
imitations  of  the  old  papers  arc  made,  among  the 
papers  of  the  trade  a  very  drastic  choice  will  have 
to  be  made,  and  the  safest  plan  will  perhaps  be  to 
be  satisfied  with  plain  stripes ;  in  this  way  one  can 
be  at  least  sure  of  not  making  mistakes  in  taste. 

If  we  can  hang  the  walls  with  some  material, 
it  is  obvious  that  it  will  only  be  a  very  far  off 
reminder  of  the  marvellous  products  of  the 
Lyons  looms  under  Louis  XVI,  the  designs  for 
which  were  made  by  that  great  artist  Philippe  de 
Lassalle.  And  here  also  we  shall  do  well  to  keep 
to  stripes,  which  have  at  any  rate  the  advantage 
of  giving  an  illusion  of  a  little  added  height  to 
the  cramped  squat  boxes  in  which  we  are  lodged. 

As  for  colour,  Caillot  observes  that  the  aris- 
tocracy in  their  mansions  remained  faithful  to  the 
classic  ''  hangings  of  crimson  damask,  divided  and 
upheld  vertically  and  horizontally  by  gilt  fillets,'' 
or  else  golden  yellow  damask ;  but  that  in  the 
houses  of  financiers  and  bourgeois  "  the  hangings 
and  curtains  of  yellow  or  crimson  damask  had 
been  taken  down  and  sky  blue  stretched  upon  the 
walls  or  partitions  they  had  deserted."  Many 
other  colours  besides  this  "  sky  blue  "  were  used  : 
bright  colours  and  sober  colours,  pearl  greys, 
water  greens,  pinks  glazed  with  white,  but  also, 
and  very  often,  hues  much  less  dull  and  diluted 
than  we  give  them  credit  for  to-day. 


THE   DRAWING   ROOM    8i 

When  chairs  were  not  covered  with  tapestries 
from  the  looms  of  Beauvais  and  Aubusson  or 
needlework,  they  were  covered  as  far  as  possible 
with  the  same  material  as  the  walls ;  and  when 
one  referred  to  the  furniture  of  a  room  it  meant 
the  whole  ensemble  of  the  same  material,  hang- 
ings, curtains,  and  chairs.  It  goes  without 
saying  that  we  will  very  seldom  be  able  to  imitate 
this  harmony.  If  we  have  got  hold  of  chairs 
without  any  covering,  we  shall  be  able  to  have 
them  done  either  with  a  good  copy  of  an  old 
silk,  or  with  a  figured,  striped  or  corded  velvet. 

What  was  the  furniture  to  be  lound  in  a 
drawing-room  ?  Let  us  once  more  enquire  of 
Caillot  :  "  On  the  mantelpiece,  the  eyes  could 
not  tell  on  what  object  to  fix  their  admiration  ; 
in  the  centre  a  clock  of  the  costliest  and  most 
beautiful  workmanship,  and  on  either  side  many- 
branching  candelabra,  perfume  burners  ringed 
round  with  gold,  and  vases  of  Chinese,  Japanese, 
and  Dresden  porcelain.  .  .  .  On  each  side  of  the 
mirror  a  candelabrum  ^  with  three  or  four  branches. 
In  the  middle  of  the  ceiling  hung  a  lustre  ^  of 
Bohemian  glass,  all  its  corners  fastened  with  pins 
of  brass,  gilt  or  even  vermilion.  Underneath  this 
handsome  lustre  stood  on  three  feet  a  table  of 
porphyry  or  some  priceless  marble,  upon  which 
were  set  porcelain  vases  of  the  most  famous 
makes  of  the  Far  East  and  Europe,  and  often  in 

^  Caillofs  vocabulary  is  not  very  exact:  he  means  a  hraz  dc 
lumicrc  ;  we  should  call  it  a  sconce. 
'  Not  a  real  "  lustre,"  but  a  lantcrne. 


82  LOUIS  XVI   FURNITURE 

the  summer  time  baskets  full  of  flowers.  Here  and 
there  in  the  corners  of  the  salon  might  be  seen  a 
few  gaming  tables."  Let  us  add  at  least  one 
console,  the  two  traditional  bergeres  by  the  fire- 
place (these  were  sometimes  replaced  by  that 
hideous  form  of  seat,  the  marquise,  too  wide  for 
one  person  and  too  small  for  two),  and  the  other 
seats ;  canapes,  arm-chairs,  chairs,  and  those 
curving  X-shaped  stools  (Fig.  49)  that  imitated 
the  curule  chair  of  the  Romans. 

There  you  have  practically  all  the  furniture 
proper  to  a  large  drawing-room  or  salon,  but  we 
must  remember  that  our  drawing-rooms  of 
to-day  correspond  much  more  nearly  to  the 
salons  de  co^npagnie  and  other  less  formal  and 
ceremonious  rooms  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
In  these  there  reigned  already,  and  much  more 
than  under  Louis  XV,  that  medley  for  which 
our  modern  interiors  have  so  often  been  blamed, 
There  was,  to  begin  with,  "  an  infinity  of 
little  pieces,  lightly  wrought  " ;  commodes, 
escritoires,  bonheurs  du  joiir^  small  tables  of 
every  kind,  spinets,  vitrines.  .  .   . 

And  there  was  no  shrinking  from  mixing 
styles.  "In  a  certain  number  of  houses  the 
owners,  remaining  faithful  to  old  ways  religously 
preserved  the  furniture  that  had  served  their 
forbears ;  there  were  also  many  others  whose 
furniture  and  decorations  had  been  renewed,  in 
accordance  with  the  new  tastes  and  fashions,  or 
whose  old  furniture  was  mixed  with  more  modern 
articles.  ...     In    was    mainly    among    young 


MIXING    STYLES  83 

married  folk  that  this  amalgam  of  old  and  new 
had  come  about.  They  neither  cared  to  turn 
their  backs  on  the  ways  of  their  fathers,  nor  to 
set  themselves  in  opposition  to  the  ways  that  held 
sway  among  their  own  contemporaries."  Besides, 
it  is  sufficient  to  run  through  a  portfolio  of  en- 
gravings of  the  period  to  see  how  very  little, 
when  artists  wished  to  represent  a  very  elegant 
interior  of  their  own  day,  they  hesitated  to 
amalgamate  the  two  styles  of  their  century ;  and 
we  have  tried  to  show  that  the  differences 
between  the  two  were  not  fundamental.  But  it 
calls  for  both  tact  and  taste  to  choose  from 
among  Louis  XV  and  Louis  XVI  furniture  the 
pieces  that  have  enough  affinities  to  come 
together  without  clashing.  If  one  has  at  his 
disposal  a  fairly  spacious  room,  it  would  be 
amusing  to  put  together  a  Louis  XV  corner  in 
a  Louis  XVI  salon. 

Many  pieces  belonging  to  the  Revolutionary  ^ 
period  are  still  quite  sufficiently  of  their  century 
to  be  very  well  able  to  find  a  place  in  a  Louis 
XVI  environment.  They  will  have  the  air  of 
poor  relations  if  you  like,  but  at  any  rate  of 
relations.  If  seats  are  concerned,  striped 
materials,  which  are  equally  suitable  for  the  two 
periods,  will  be  more  than  ever  indicated  in 
order  to  keep  up  the  harmonious  impression. 

But  it  would  be  much  more  difficult  to  group 

*  For  example,  the  escritoire  (Fig.  85),  the  consoles  (Figs.  87 
and  88),  the  arm-chair  (Fig.  95),  the  bergere  (Fig.  94),  the  bed 
(Fig.  99). 


84  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

Louis  XVI  furniture  with  that  of  another 
century  and  still  achieve  any  harmonious  effect* 
We  have,  it  is  true,  discovered  towards  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century  a  return  to  the  shapes, 
the  ornaments,  and  even  the  technique  of  the 
time  of  Louis  XIV,  but  these  characteristics  are 
to  be  found  only  in  a  few  commodes,  consoles 
and  pieces  between  these  two  and  of  the  highest 
luxury  and  costliness ;  and  in  this  book  we  do 
not  claim  to  be  writing  for  new  Wallaces  or 
Camondos ! — And  what  of  the  Empire  Style  ? — 
Without  doubt  the  Empire  Style,  from  one 
point  of  view,  is  merely  the  logical  successor  to 
that  of  Louis  XVI,  the  strict  application  of  the 
principles  by  which  the  latter  purported  to  be 
governed.  But — apart  from  the  fact  that  it  is 
the  expression  of  a  quite  new  society — this  very 
rigorousness  isolates  it,  as  a  fanatic  is  isolated  in 
a  society  built  upon  mutual  concessions  and 
compromise.  A  purely  Empire  interior  is  ac- 
ceptable, but  an  Empire  piece  among  Louis  XVI 
furniture  is  a  sententious  and  dowdy  pedant  in 
the  midst  of  rather  frivolous  and  smart  society, 
it  is  ridiculous. 

And  then  there  is  the  very  important  question 
of  colour.  The  Louis  XIV  gamut,  if  one  may 
use  the  phrase,  and  the  Empire  gamut  are  by 
far  too  different  from  that  of  the  Louis  XVI 
Style,  even  though  as  a  last  resort  for  harmonis- 
ing or  general  effect  we  have  the  old  crimson 
damask,  which  has  in  the  past  resisted  so 
many    changes    of    fashion    that    under   Loui§- 


KNICK-KNACKS  85 

Philippe  it  was  still  battling  against  that  hideous 
triumphant  rep. 

Let  us  come  back  to  our  salon.  It  now  has 
its  hangings,  its  furniture,  its  chimney  set — a 
clock  and  two  candelabra,  between  the  candelabra 
and  the  clock  stand  two  perfume  burners  made 
of  marble  and  mounted  in  gilt  bronze  ;  that  is 
the  traditional  sacred  set  which,  for  the  rest,  we 
are  allowed  to  find  very  banal  and  to  replace  by 
something  else.  Caillot  has  told  us  of  porcelain 
vases  from  the  Far  East,  or  French  or  Dresden ; 
a  bust  in  marble  or  terra  cotta,  a  group  of 
biscuit  ware,  if  the  chimney-piece  is  a  small  one, 
may  take  the  place  of  the  clock.  As  for  the  floor, 
if  it  is  a  handsome  one  the  best  thing  is  to  leave 
it  bare;  if  you  wish  to  cover  it,  failing  an 
authentic  French  carpet — extremely  costly, 
probably  worn  down  to  the  backing,  and  most 
certainly  full  of  darnings — ^you  will  be  quite  safe 
from  anachronism  by  adopting  an  Eastern  carpet 
of  well  chosen  colouring ;  it  goes  with  every- 
thing. On  the  walls  there  w'll  be  a  barometer 
in  gilt  wood,  a  wall  clock,  engravings.   .   .    . 

Finally  let  there  be,  everywhere,  in  vitrines, 
on  the  console,  on  the  tables,  as  many  toys  and 
trinkets  as  you  please ;  there  never  was  a  time 
that  loved  them  so  dearly.  They  may  be  of 
three  categories,  one  as  much  Louis  XVI  as 
another :  European  articles  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  biscuit  ware,  figures  or  animals  in 
Dresden,  boxes  and  cases  of  every  sort  and  every 
piaterial,  cups,   vases,  cups  and  saucers  even  if 


86  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

they  are  of  fine  porcelain ;  a  pretty  tooled  leather 
binding  on  the  corner  of  a  bonheur  dii  jour  has 
an  agreeable  effect.  .  .  .  Then  come  Chinese, 
Japanese,  Indian  things ;  the  kindly  eclecticism 
of  the  time  admitted  them  readily,  although  they 
were  less  of  a  mania  than  they  were  about  1740. 
Lastly,  antiques,  either  genuine  or  exact  replicas 
of  the  originals.  Nothing  could  be  better  in 
place  in  a  Louis  XVI  interior  than  an  Athenian 
lecythos^  a  little  bronze  excavated  at  Pompeii,  a 
Roman  lamp,  a  little  statue  of  Myrrhina  in 
terra  cotta. 

Now  for  the  dining-room.  To  furnish  this  in 
a  modern  house  will  present  much  the  same 
difficulty,  whether  the  style  in  question  is 
Louis  XVI  or  Louis  XV,  for  this  particular 
room  was  still  very  scantily  supplied  with  furni- 
ture. Besides  the  table  and  the  chairs  there  was 
hardly  to  be  found  one  or  two  consoles  or  tables- 
desserteSy  very  seldom  a  buffet,  its  place  was 
filled  by  cupboards,  or  else  indeed  the  china  and 
silver,  which  no  one  thought  it  necessary  to 
display  for  everyone  to  see,  were  kept  in  the 
kitchen.  If  you  must  needs  have  the  traditional 
buffet,  which  is,  of  course,  often  essential  for 
want  of  other  conveniences,  you  will  have  to  fall 
back  upon  provincial  pieces,  especially  those  from 
Normandy  or  from  Aries,  for  it  was  almost 
entirely  in  these  two  districts  that  buffets  were 
made  of  sufficient  finish  to  fit  them  for  an 
interior  of  any  refinement.  A  Normandy  buffet 
then  in  two  parts,  which  you  will  select  of  the 


THE   DINING    ROOM      87 

smallest  dimensions  and  finely  carved ;  or  better 
still  an  Arlesian  buffet-credence  (Fig.  8),  whose 
low  shape  will  be  better  in  proportion  with  the 
probably  none  too  lofty  ceiling,  and  whose 
carving  will  be  as  elaborate  and  as  florid  as  you 
can  wish.  And  why  should  one  not  bring  in 
with  it  its  inevitable  companions,  the  kneading 
trough  (Fig.  13),  which  will  do  for  a  service 
table,  the  various  dressers  for  glass  and  pewter 
(Figs.  9  and  12),  the  little  shelved  vitrine — a 
miniature  armoire — and  the  bread  cupboard,  the 
perfection  of  decorativeness. 

As  for  seats,  our  obliging  Caillot  gives  us 
another  priceless  indication ;  they  will  be  '^  chairs 
of  elegant  simplicity.  In  several  houses," — in 
this  passage  he  is  referring  to  the  houses  of  the 
old  Parisian  nobility — "they  were  straw,  in 
others  caned  or  of  horse-hair  covered  with  hide.'' 
And  so  without  any  fear  of  perhaps  giving  our 
dining-room  too  countryfied  an  air  we  can  have 
in  it  some  simple  but  handsome  straw-seated 
chairs  with  sheaf  backs,  or  arcaded,  or  with  plain 
cross  pieces  (Figs.  59  to  6^)^  and  if  we  want  them 
to  look  more  elaborate  and  be  more  comfortable, 
let  them  have  square  cushions  stuffed  with  horse- 
hair, covered  with  silk,  or  velvet,  or  printed  linen, 
and  tied  to  the  four  corners  of  the  seats.  Or  let 
us  have  some  of  those  stout  cane  chairs  with 
square  or  oval  cane  backs,  or  else  let  us  have 
mahogany  chairs  with  open-work  wooden  backs 
and  leather  covered  seats  (Figs.  57  and  58). 

In  a  bedroom  we  must  have  a  bed,  or  two 


88  LOUIS   XVI   FURNITURE 

twin  beds  (they  were  known  already),  either 
angel  beds  or  h  la  polonaise  \  the  curtains,  if  a 
regard  for  hygiene  does  not  forbid  them,  the  bed- 
spread, the  panels  of  the  head  and  foot  of  the 
bed,  will  all  be  of  the  same  material,  gay  coloured 
silk  or  Jouy  linen.  We  know  the  extraordinary 
vogue  under  Louis  XVI  of  the  productions  of 
this  celebrated  manufactory  of  printed  linens  that 
Oberkampf  had  set  up  at  Jouy;  those  bright 
materials  with  their  clear  pure  colour,  their 
designs  carried  out  in  camaieu  with  such  ease 
and  sureness,  and  with  old-world  subjects  of  so 
attaching  a  charm,  are  indeed  the  most  becoming 
attire  which,  even  in  the  city,  can  possibly  be 
employed  to  brighten  and  enliven  a  room.  In 
any  case  these  linens  were  not  held  unworthy  of 
the  royal  apartments.  Oberkampf  and  Reveillon 
were  leagued  together  to  produce,  the  one  linens 
and  the  other  papers  in  the  same  designs  and  the 
same  colours ;  everyone  knows  that  to-day  paper 
makers  and  makers  of  printed  stuffs  do  the  same, 
and  that  they  reproduce  the  old  models  with 
absolute  fidelity.  The  rest  of  the  furniture  will 
be  made  up  of,  say,  a  chaise-longue  (if  it  is  a 
duchesse  brisie  it  will  be  the  handier)  and  two 
or  three  arm-chairs  or  plain  chairs  covered  in  the 
same  printed  linen ;  a  commode  surmounted  by 
a  little  mirror  with  a  narrow  gilt  frame,  a 
chiffonier — a  most  practical  and  useful  piece — if 
we  can  manage  to  unearth  one ;  a  closed  night 
table  (Fig.  35),  or  indeed  an  open  one  (which 
will  be  really  better  here  than  in  a   drawing- 


THE   BEDROOM  89 

room,  where  they  arc  so  often  to  be  seen  !),  a 
toilette,  which  will  most  certainly  not  be  used  as 
a  washing  stand,  but  a  dressing  table  proper  ;  the 
toilet  arm-chair  with  its  flat  cushion  in  morocco 
leather,  perhaps  one  of  those  pretty  small 
Normandy  armoires  with  a  single  door,  whose 
narrow  shape  makes  them  easy  to  find  house-room 
for,  and  which  are  called  bonnetilres.  Last  of 
all,  for  the  carpet  we  must  have  a  modern  one, 
and  it  will  be  a  plain  moquette  of  the  same 
colour  as  the  hangings. 

It  would  be  a  very  interesting  task  to  furnish  a 
country  house,  especially  an  old  one,  in  the 
eighteenth  century  style — when  it  comes  to 
country  furniture  the  styles  of  Louis  XV  and 
Louis  XVI  are  very  nearly  alike — especially  if  we 
try  to  give  it  the  most  emphatic  local  character 
possible.  Here  we  shall  no  doubt  find  the 
dimensions  of  the  pieces  give  hardly  any  trouble, 
and  we  shall  not  be  forced  to  exclude,  on  account 
of  their  excessive  height  and  width,  those  goodly 
great  armoires  of  the  provinces  that  can  hold  a 
pantechnicon  load.  What  does  Caillot  say?  In 
the  country  chateaux  '^  instead  of  ordinary  time- 
pieces clocks  shut  up  in  armoires  ^  gave  out  the 
hours,  and  wardrobes  of  well  carven  walnut  were 
the  principal  furniture  to  be  seen  in  the  dining- 
rooms  and  the  bedrooms."  Let  us  add  that 
they  look  equally  well  in  a  great  country  drawing- 
room,  in  a  hall  or  on  a  landing.  In  the  dining- 
room  we  can  replace  or  reinforce  the  wardrobe 
*  Cased  clocks. 


90  LOUIS   XVI    FURNITURE 

in  question  by  one  of  those  huge  buifets  in  two 
parts  fitted  with  doors,  or  shelved  and  open 
XbuffttS'Vaisseliers)^  whose  lofty  height  always 
astonishes  the  Parisian  in  the  country/  Natur- 
ally printed  linen  is  indicated  in  every  room  for 
hangings,  beds  and  chair  covers;  or  else  boucassin^ 
that  highly  prepared  fabric,  glazed  and  rustling 
like  paper,  which  was  once  made  at  Marseilles  and 
which  has  to-day  begun  to  be  made  once  more, 
eminently  hygienic  and  bright  to  look  at.  For 
seats  we  may  be  satisfied  in  all  the  rooms  with 
straw  arm-chairs  and  chairs;  sofas  like  the  one 
shown  in  Fig.  68  are  unhappily  scarce.  Rustic 
faience  and  pottery  and  brass  will  be  invaluable 
to  finish  the  decoration  of  our  country  dwelling, 
and  in  many  provinces  the  modern  productions 
of  local  industries  will  "  date  "  so  little  that  they 
can  be  mixed  with  genuine  old  articles  without 
clashing. 

*  We  write  this  face  to  face  with  a  buffet  from  the  Pyrenees 
which  stands  little  less  than  ten  feet  high  from  feet  to  cornice. 


THIRD    PART 
THE    EMPIRE    FURNITURE 


CHAPTER  ONE :  CHARACTER- 
ISTICS AND  TECHNIQUE  OF 
THE    STYLE 

The  Empire  Style  is  the  considered  and  de- 
liberate work  of  a  revolutionary  generation  which 
fostered  the  cult  of  antiquity.  Revolutionary, 
and  revolutionary  in  the  French  fashion,  it 
had  a  natural  tendency  to  despise  the  past  root 
and  branch,  and  to  turn  with  set  prejudice  in 
everything,  cabinet-making  as  much  as  politics, 
to  the  exact  opposite  of  what  went  before  the 
fateful  date  of  '89.  This  was  going  to  an 
extreme  ;  having  founded  a  new  society  they 
were  struggling  to  procure  an  art  that  should 
befit  this  society,  if  not  as  it  was,  at  least  as  it 
imagined  itself  and  set  up  to  be,  and  this  was 
perfectly  legitimate.  But  this  generation,  repub- 
lican at  the  outset,  soon  turned  again  towards 
the  monarchy ;  the  Empire  Style  is  revolutionary, 
but  it  is  also  monarchical  ;  it  displays  some  of 
the  most  fundamental  characteristics  of  the 
grandiose  style  of  Louis  XIV ;  in  short,  let  us 
borrow  an  epithet  from  the  immortal  M.  de 
Lapalisse,  it  is  imperial. 

There  is  in  existence  an  authoritative  text 
upon  the  Empire  Style,  the  preface  made  by 
Fontaine  for  a  collection  of  plates  published  in 
1 8 12  by  his  friend  Percier  and  himself,  under  this 

93 


94    EMPIRE  FURNITURE 

title  :  Recueil  de  decorations  tnterieiires^  corn- 
prenant  toutce  qui  a  rapport  a  Pameublement^ 
comme  vases ^  trepieds^  candelabres^  cassolettes^ 
lustres^  tables^  secretaires^  lits^  canapes^  fau- 
teuils^  chaises^  tabourets^  miroirs^  ecrans^  etc. 
The  very  great  influence  exercised  by  these  two 
architects  upon  the  whole  art  of  furnishing  in 
their  own  epoch  makes  a  document  of  this  kind 
most  valuable,  since  in  it  they  set  out  their  ideas 
in  the  form  of  doctrine.  They  proclaim  above 
all  their  bitter  contempt  for  the  past — the  past 
of  French  art,  of  course — showing  mercy  only  to 
the  sixteenth  century,  "that  century  which  after 
a  long  period  of  barrenness  seemed  to  be  a  kind 
of  scion  of  antiquity,  and  which  the  succeeding 
centuries,  in  spite  of  every  effort  of  minds 
searching  for  novelty,  were  as  far  from  equalling 
as  they  imagined  they  had  surpassed  it,"  But 
the  full  severity  of  their  scorn  is  reserved  for  the 
eighteenth  century.  "The  eighteenth  century 
displays  the  meanness,  falsity,  and  insignificance 
of  its  taste  in  the  gilding  of  its  woodwork,  the 
outlines  of  its  mirrors,  the  contortions  of  its 
door-heads,  its  carriages,  etc.,  as  in  th.^  miscelinear 
plans  of  its  buildings  and  the  affected  compositions 
of  its  painters."  Complete  rupture,  then,  and 
without  any  transition  period,  with  the  past,  or 
rather  a  very  definite  intention  to  carry  out  this 
rupture,  for  the  past  is  always  too  strong  to  let 
itself  be  effaced  in  this  way  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen. 
However  they  disliked  it,  Percier  and  Fontaine 
continued    it  in  a    certain  sense,   this   despised 


SACRED   ANTIQUITY     95 

century  that  had  been  unfortunate  enough  to 
produce  a  Cressent  and  an  Oeben,  a  Riesener  and 
a  Carlin,  since  it  was  he  who  had  inaugurated  the 
famous  return  to  antiquity ;  but  Percier  and 
Fontaine,  Jacob  Desmalter  and  his  rivals,  the 
Lignereux,  the  Rascalons,  the  Burettes,  go  to  the 
end  of  the  path  on  which  their  predecessors  had 
entered  cautiously  and  without  any  surrender  of 
their  independence,  they  admire  everything  in 
antiquity,  pell-mell,  without  distinction,  Egyptian, 
Greek,  Etruscan,  Roman,  the  archaic  and  the 
decadent,  sculpture  and  furniture,  from  the 
Parthenon  down  to  the  most  vulgar  decorations 
of  the  wall  daubers  of  Pompeii.  It  is  antique, 
therefore  it  is  logical ;  antique,  therefore  beautiful ; 
antique,  therefore  we  moderns  can  do  nothing 
better  than  copy  it,  and  if  anyone  ventures  to 
exercise  his  critical  faculties  upon  these  holy 
things,  what  sacrilege!  "It  would  be  vain  to 
seek  for  shapes  preferable  to  those  handed  dovm 
to  us  by  the  Ancients,  whether  in  the  arts  of  en- 
gineering or  in  those  of  decoration  or  industry.  .  ,  , 
If  the  study  of  antiquity  should  come  to  be 
neglected,  before  long  the  productions  of  industry 
would  lose  that  regulating  influence  which  alone 
can  give  the  best  direction  to  their  ornaments, 
which  in  some  sort  prescribes  to  every  substance 
the  limits  within  which  its  claims  to  please  must 
be  confined,  which  indicates  to  the  artist  the  best 
utilisation  of  forms,  and  fixes  their  varieties 
within  a  circle  which  they  should  never  overstep," 
And  why  should  ancient  articles  of  furniture  be 


96     EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

our  models  for  ever?  Because  "  in  them  can  be 
seen  the  reign  of  the  power  of  reason,  which  more 
than  anyone  thinks  is  the  true  genius  of  archi- 
tecture, of  ornamentation  and  furniture." 

The  ideal  thing  then  would  be  to  have  in  our 
houses  nothing  but  furniture  copied  from  that 
of  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans.  Unhappily 
there  are  excellent  reasons  to  prevent  this.  The 
Ancients,  by  reason  of  their  simple  and  wholly 
exterior  life,  had  very  little  furniture  and  seem 
to  have  paid  very  scanty  attention  to  it.  There 
were  beds  for  the  night's  sleep,  rest  beds  for  the 
siesta,  on  which  they  lay  propped  up  on  elbows 
when  they  wished  to  write  ;  couches  for  dinner, 
tables  that  were  much  lower  than  ours  because  of 
the  reclining  posture  in  which  they  took  their 
food  ;  tripods  on  which  was  set  indiscriminately 
a  brazier,  a  wine  jar,  a  tray  that  turned  them  into 
tables;  arm-chairs,  chairs,  stools,  folding  stools, 
coffers  .  .  .  and  that  was  all.  What  native  of 
France,  even  in  the  best  days  of  the  Revolution, 
would  have  been  Spartan  enough  to  be  satisfied 
with  so  little  ? 

Since  this  furniture  is  so  very  restricted,  how 
is  it  we  have  any  knowledge  of  it?  Everything 
that  was  made  of  wood  has  disappeared,  so  that 
we  are  less  familiar  with  Roman  articles  of 
furniture  of  the  first  century  a.d.  than  we  are 
with  Egyptian  furniture  of  the  fifteenth  century 
before  the  Christian  era.  The  only  survivals  are 
articles  made  of  bronze,  tripods,  legs  of  tables 
and  couches,  frames  of  stools  and  folding  seats, 


A    COMPROMISE  97 

and  a  number  of  ceremonial  thrones  in  marble, 
like  those  of  the  priests  of  Dionysus  at  Athens. 
We  can  only  conjecture  what  the  rest  were  like 
from  the  representations  we  find  in  the  bas-reliefs, 
the  figures  on  vases,  and  some  painted  decorations 
at  Pompeii,  which  is  to  say  that  we  know  them 
very  little,  in  view  of  the  element  of  convention 
there  always  is  in  antique  art.  The  Greek 
diphros^  for  example,  the  chair  with  a  very  sloping 
back  made  of  a  broad  cross  piece,  very  deep  and 
fitting  the  shoulders,  and  with  legs  of  such  a 
strange  curve  in  front  and  at  back,  how  was  it 
made?  How  could  those  legs,  if  they  were  made 
of  wood,  have  the  least  solidity  or  strength  ? 
What  is  certain  is  that  no  joiner,  either  under 
the  Revolution  or  under  the  Empire,  ever  even 
tried  to  reproduce  them  as  they  were ;  the  full 
round  of  the  back  was  indeed  imitated  and  the 
spreading  out  of  the  back  legs,  though  afar  off 
and  greatly  attenuated,  and  no  one  ever  dreamed 
of  modifying  the  normal  vertical  line  of  the 
front  legs. 

The  scanty  furniture  which  the  Ancients 
actually  had  was  then  far  from  well  known,  and 
we  may  add  that  it  was  far  from  comfortable, 
and  meant  for  a  way  of  life  very  different  from 
ours,  and  so  it  was  necessary  to  invent  nearly 
everything,  and  to  modify  the  rest.  In  fact,  the 
strict  imitation  of  antiquity  at  which  they  aimed 
was  quite  impossible ;  and  Fontaine  was  obliged 
to  recognise  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  com- 
promise and  adapting  in  it.     "  We  have  followed 


98     EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

the  models  of  antiquity/'  he  writes,  "not  blindly 
but  with  the  discrimination  entailed  by  the 
manners,  customs  and  materials  of  the  moderns. 
We  have  striven  to  imitate  the  antique  in  its 
spirit,  its  principles  and  its  maxims,  which  are  of 
all  time."  It  must  be  recognised  that  even  if 
there  are  errors  in  taste,  incongruities  that  make 
us  smile,  something  at  once  painful,  puerile  and 
pedantic  in  this  great  labour  of  accommodation, 
it  was  after  all  carried  out  with  as  happy  an 
effect  as  possible ;  and  it  is  most  remarkable  that, 
starting  from  a  principle  so  profoundly  erroneous, 
it  was  possible  to  arrive  at  creating  a  style  so 
homogeneous  and  imposing  as  that  which,  to  take 
an  example,  displays  itself  in  the  smallest  details 
of  the  Hotel  de  Beauharnais.^ 

The  interpretation  of  the  ancient  models 
could  not  avoid  the  prejudices  and  fixed  ideas  of 
the  time,  in  conformity  with  the  ideas  that  were 
held  of  the  Ancients.  What  then  were  the 
Greeks  and  the  Romans  in  the  eyes  of  the  men 
who  created  or  used  the  furniture  of  the  Empire 
Style  ?  Something  in  the  manner  of  Corneille'a 
dramatis  per  sonce  as  incarnated  by  Talma,  people 
continually  and  invariably  heroical  and  grandilo- 
quent, their  arms  always  outstretched  for  terrific 
oaths  and  vows,  or  their  sword  brandished  against 
the  foes  of  their  country  and  freedom,  who  never 
spoke  save  in  sublime  aphorisms,  in  short,  entire 
nations  of  Harmodiuses,  Leonidases,  Brutuses, 
Catos  and  Augustuses ;  they  were  those  emphatic 
^  The  late  German  Embassy  in  Paris. 


AUSTERE  GRANDEUR  99 

fellows  out  of  Plutarch's  Lives  and  Livy's 
histories,  who  knit  their  brows  and  strain  their 
wooden  muscles  in  the  great  stiff  canvases  of 
Louis  David.  And  then  it  was  sought  to  imagine 
the  furniture  that  these  folk  would  have  had  if 
they  had  known  mahogany  and  flatted  gilding, 
veneer  and  glue,  China  silks  and  Utrecht  velvet. 
If  an  arm-chair  was  designed  it  was  such  an  arm- 
chair as  Leonidas  might  have  sat  in  without 
being  ridiculous,  stark  naked,  his  sword  between 
his  legs  and  on  his  head  his  great  casque  with  its 
flowing  horse-hair  crest. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  he  could  not  well  be 
imagined  in  the  flowered  brocade  of  a  Louis  XV 
bergere.  .  •  *  And  so  Percier,  Fontaine  and  the 
rest  deliberately  turned  their  backs  upon  every- 
thing that  had  been  the  ideal  of  the  eigtheenth 
century;  comfort,  intimacy,  charming  grace- 
fulness, refined  and  delicate  gaiety.  They 
set  themselves  to  work  on  the  grand  scale,  severe, 
heroic;  if  they  had  to  make  furniture  for  a 
tradesman  grown  rich,  a  banker,  or  a  dancer,  the 
interiors  of  their  devising  always  looked  as  though 
they  were  awaiting  some  marshal  gone  to  the 
wars,  who  would  be  coming  back  laden  with 
laurels  as  soon  as  peace  was  made. 

It  was  first  of  all  by  the  use  of  new  lines  that 
this  effect  of  grandiose  severity  was  aimed  at, 
lines  that  became  more  and  more  simple  and 
rigid,  delimiting  large  even  surfaces  with  tren- 
chant definiteness.  The  style  of  Louis  XVI  had 
already  done  away  with  many  curved  elements, 


100  EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

and  the  Empire  carried  on  the  war  against  them. 
The  shape  of  a  box  pleased  the  eyes  of  this 
generation,  the  shape  of  an  obelisk  was  not  with- 
out charm  for  them,  and  a  milestone  positively 
enchanted  them.  Under  the  Republic  at  the 
outset  turners  still  find  a  great  deal  to  do  in  the 
furniture  industry,  but  the  outlines  of  turned 
parts,  that  were  spindled  to  begin  with,  speedily 
become  rectilinear  ^ ;  under  the  Empire,  supports 
of  circular  section,  balusters,  quiver  legs,  pillars, 
are  very  frequently  replaced  by  pilasters,  legs 
with  square  section.  The  pillar  continues  to  be 
found  at  the  corners  of  certain  pieces,  but  de- 
tached and  no  longer  engaged,  no  longer  serving 
to  replace  a  right-angled  arris  so  as  to  soften  the 
contour,  it  is  super-added  to  it  and  leaves  it 
plain  to  be  seen;  it  is  cylindrical  or  slightly 
conical,  with  a  base  and  capital  of  the  order 
known  as  Tuscan  and  covered  in  brass  either 
plain  or  engine-turned  and  gilt. 

As  for  mouldings  they  disappeared  almost  com- 
pletely, and  with  them  the  interest  they  were 
sufficient  in  themselves  to  lend  to  the  simplest 
furniture,  thanks  to  the  effects  of  the  light  on 
their  round  surfaces  and  projections.  When  a 
trace  of  them  appears  it  is  no  more  than  a  listel^^ 
a  fillet  in  low  relief,  a  rudimentary  douctne  *  or 
quart  de  rond.*    What  is  more  vexing  still  is 

^  Compare  the  legs  of  the  chair  in  Fig.  91  with  those  of  the 
arm-chair  in  Fig.  93  and  the  bergere  in  Fig.  94 ;  the  arm  consoles 
of  the  arm-chair  of  Fig.  95  with  those  of  the  bergera  of  Fig.  94 
and  the  arm-chair  of  Fig.  93 ;  the  legs  of  the  console  table  in 
Fig.  88  with  those  of  Fig.  89. 


A  SHARP  SILHOUETTE  loi 

that  this  atrophied  sort  of  moulding  manages  to 
make  the  outward  view  of  a  piece  of  furniture 
deceitful.  It  runs,  for  instance,  all  round  the 
seat  frame  of  an  arm-chair,  passing  without  a  break 
from  the  traverses  of  the  seat  to  the  tetes  de 
pieds^  as  if  the  legs  were  set  into  the  frame 
instead  of  its  being  the  frame  whose  four  traverses 
are  mortised  into  the  legs. 

But  what  is  preferred  above  everything  is  a 
silhouette  as  clear  cut  as  if  it  was  made  with  a 
die ;  sharp  corners,  clean  arrises,  surfaces  meet- 
ing with  no  transition  such  as  a  chamfer  *  or  a 
quadrantal.  Sharp  angles  certainly  existed  in 
small  Louis  XVI  pieces  (very  rarely;  in  those 
of  considerable  size),  but  always  softened  by  a 
fluting,  a  moulding  or  a  brass  filkt.  folio  wing  tht^ 
line  of  the  arris  and  very  close  beside  it ;  the 
eye  was  not  monopolised  by  the  arris,  divided 
as  it  was,  so  to  say,  between  it  and  two  or  three 
other  neighbouring  parallel  lines  (Figs.  17,  21, 
etc.).  The  Empire  Style  is  just  the  reverse,  it 
emphasises  the  arris  and  thrusts  it  upon  the  eye 
as  much  as  possible.  It  is  enough  to  have  seen 
a  single  one  of  those  designs  by  Percier  and  Fon- 
taine, whose  style  is  so  masterly,  but  so  extra- 
ordinarily dry  and  austere,  in  order  to  understand 
the  taste  of  the  time  for  "  pure  and  correct  " 
contours — pure  and  correct  meaning,  in  this  case, 
of  an  uncompromising  geometry. 

Let  us  take  as  an  example  the  simplest  pos- 
sible panelled  furniture,  an  armoire,  or  a  closed 
night  table.   This  is  composed  of  thin  panels  fitted 


102  EMPIRE  FURNITURE 

into  uprights  and  traverses.  In  the  Louis  XVI 
period  these  uprights  and  traverses,  in  accord- 
ance with  reason  and  logic,  are  in  relief  and 
frame  the  panels  clearly  and  distinctly,  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  whole  piece  can  be  grasped  at  the 
first  glance.  Under  the  Empire  the  surface  of 
the  panels  is  level  vdth  that  of  their  frames,  and 
a  uniform  veneer,  the  eternal  veneer  of  polished 
mahogany,  covers  everything,  conceals  the  struc- 
ture and  putting  together,  and  gives  the  piece 
the  desiredj  aspect  of  a  block  whose  massive 
appearance  no  caryatides  nor  pillar  will  ever 
avail  to  mitigate.  See  (Fig.  88)  what  has  be- 
come of  .the  pleasant  bonheur  dujour  of  earlier 
days.  A  Louis  XV  piece  of  furniture  has  the 
unity  of  a  living  creature,  the  Empire  piece  the 
unity  of  a  monolith.  What  still  further  in- 
creases this  massy  monumental  look  is  the  heavy 
base,  which  is  the  ordinary  medium  by  which 
this  furniture  rests  on  the  ground  (Figs.  86  and 
89) ;  if  it  is  a  table  which  has  to  be  easily  moved, 
the  base  in  question  is  elevated  upon  castors, 
which  in  itself  is  a  further  serious  wrenching  of 
logic. 

There  is  another  principle  which  the  new  style 
follows  v^th  unflinching  rigour,  the  principle  of 
symmetry.  And  here,  too,  it  is  simply  an  ex- 
aggeration of  the  Louis  XVI  Style,  it  even  goes 
beyond  the  antique.  In  a  room  the  decoration 
is  always  symmetrical  and  the  furniture  is  ar- 
ranged symmetrically,  in  any  piece  of  furniture 
all  the  parts  balance  one  another,  right  and  left, 


SYMMETRY  103 

in  their  smallest  details  ^ ;  a  bed,  for  instance, 
will  have  a  ridiculous  rondin^^  or  round  bolster 
cushion  at  the  foot  to  balance  the  one  at  the 
head;  still  better,  taking  each  ornament  separ- 
ately, if  it  is  not  symmetrical  with  another  it  is 
so  in  itself,^  and  that  even  when  it  is  a  human 
figure.  And  so  a  Winged  Victory  stretches  up 
towards  heaven  her  two  hands  holding  two 
similar  wreaths,  and  the  skirt  of  her  robe  spreads 
out  into  precise  and  symmetrical  folds,  the 
antique  head  of  a  caryatid  (Figs.  86  and  89) 
has  two  absolutely  identical  plaits  or  curls  of  hair 
falling  upon  her  shoulders. 

All  this  is  what  Fontaine  meant  when  he 
wrote :  "  Simple  lines,  pure  contours,  correct 
shapes  replaced  the  miscelinear,  the  curving  and 
the  irregular." 

I:  These  pieces  have  no  very  comfortable  look, 
and  they  are  not  particularly  comfortable  either ; 
their  hard  corners  are  still  less  agreeable  for  our 
limbs  to  meet  with  than  for  our  eyes.  Arm- 
chairs, at  any  rate  at  the  outset  of  the  style 
(Fig.  93),  often  have  neither  back  nor  arms 
upholstered,  beds  present  cruel  angles  on  every 
side,  and  consoles  have  truly  formidable  corners. 
There  has  been  quoted  a  hundred  times  an 
amusing  page  on  this  theme  taken  from  the 
Opuscules  of  Roederer  (1802),  but  we  cannot 

*  Observe,  on  the  doors  of  the  lady's  bureau,  the  symmetry  of 
the  two  figures  of  goddesses,  although  they  are  different,  the 
same  attitude  exactly,  the  same  draperies,  etc. 

*  For  instance,  the  ornamentation  of  the  drawer  of  the  same 
piece,  whose  flat  gilt  bronzes  are  of  excellent  workmanship. 


104  EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

deny  ourselves  the  pleasure  of  quoting  it  once 
again,  so  characteristic  is  it.  Roederer  feigns  to 
have  heard  that  one  of  his  friends,  sick  of  his 
antique  furniture,  vi^hich  is  the  purest  and  finest 
in  all  Paris,  v^ishes  to  get  rid  of  it,  and  writes 
him  as  follows :  " .  .  .  You  do  not  realise  that 
you  have  the  most  complete  collection  of  antique 
furniture  ever  yet  brought  together,  and  that 
every  piece  has  been  made  from  the  purest 
designs.  .  .  .  Every  one  of  your  apartments  is 
furnished  with  pieces  that  belong  strictly  to 
the  same  period,  the  same  year,  the  same 
people.  .  .  .  Not  one  single  anachronism,  not 
one  single  slip  in  geography  in  the  more 
than  seven  hundred  articles  comprised  in  your 
furniture.  No  mixing  of  the  Athenian  with 
the  Lacedaemonian,  no  confusion  between  the 
furniture  of  one  Olympiad  and  that  of  another. 
Take  care,  once  more  I  beg  of  you,  take  care 
of  what  you  are  about  to  do."  But  the 
friend  is  not  very  susceptible  to  this  wonderful 
archaeology. 

"  Confess,  my  dear  fellow,"  he  replies,  "  one 
is  no  longer  seated,  no  longer  at  rest.  Not  a 
seat,  chair,  arm-chair  or  sofa,  whose  wood  is  not 
bare  and  of  sharpest  corners ;  if  I  lie  back  I  find 
a  wooden  back,  if  I  want  to  lean  on  my  elbows 
I  find  two  wooden  arms,  if  I  stir  in  my  seat  I 
find  angles  that  cut  into  my  arms  and  hips.  A 
thousand  precautions  are  needed  to  avoid  being 
bruised  by  the  most  gentle  use  of  your  furniture. 
Heaven  keep  us  to-day  from  the  temptation  to 


INFERIOR   COMFORT    105 

fling  ourselves  into  an  arm-chair,  we  should  run 
the  risk  of  breaking  our  poor  bones.    .   .  ." 

The  proportions  of  the  mixture,  so  to  say,  of 
the  exact  imitation  of  the  antique  with  attention 
to  comfort  are  the  opposite  of  what  prevailed 
during  the  Louis  XVI  period ;  the  latter 
adopted  from  the  antique  only  what  was  com- 
patible with  comfort  and  the  requirements  of 
modern  life,  the  Empire  period  only  admits  as 
much  comfort  as  is  compatible  with  its  abstract 
notions  of  pure  beauty.  This  style  is  therefore 
largely  an  artificial  one,  in  rebellion  against  life 
and  nature.  From  this  comes  the  impression 
one  has,  in  a  strictly  Empire  interior,  of  being 
in  a  museum ;  anything  that  speaks  of  life,  the 
supple  beauty  of  a  bunch  of  flowers,  a  woman's 
scarf  forgotten  on  the  back  of  a  chair,  a  seat 
out  of  place,  is  like  a  clap  of  thunder ;  instinct- 
ively one  wants  to  put  that  arm-chair  back  in 
its  place,  to  restore  the  outraged  symmetry,  to 
shut  this  book  that  has  been  left  open  and  put 
it  back  in  the  caryatid  adorned  bookcase,  to  pat 
that  cushion  covered  with  rich  silk,  which,  be- 
tween those  two  funereal  sphinxes,  has  dared  to 
retain  the  imprint  of  a  living  body. 

This  Empire  furniture  would  be  of  an  im-' 
possible  poverty — since  it  neither  has  lines 
interesting  in  themselves,  nor  moulding,  nor 
carving  (except  seats  perhaps),  nor  marquetry — 
if  it  were  not  for  the  caryatid  supports  it  so  often 
borrows  from  antiquity,  and  the  ornaments  in 
gilt  bronze  that  decorate  its   shining  mahogany 


io6  EMPIRE  FURNITURE 

surfaces.  A  caryatid  was,  in  this  period,  not 
merely  the  statue  of  a  woman  playing  the  part 
of  a  pillar,  but  any  living  creature,  human  or  not, 
natural  or  monstrous,  and  any  mixture  of  parts 
of  living  creatures  with  geometrical  forms, 
serving  as  a  support.  Caryatides  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  like  those  of  Marie- Antoin- 
ette's jewel  casket,  are  hardly  ever  made,  but 
everywhere  are  to  be  found  the  strange  race  of 
sphinxes,  male  and  female,  with  upraised  wings, 
eagle-headed  chimaeras,  winged  lions,  acting  as 
table  legs  and  consoles  to  the  arms  of  arm-chairs ; 
then  monsters  still  more  monstrous,  monstrous 
to  the  point  of  absurdity,  because  made  up  of 
elements  that  are  of  different  scales,  for  example, 
the  liori  monopode^  composed  of  a  head  and 
chest  continued  by  an  enormous  paw.  An  odd 
half  human  half  geometrical  motif  was  at  least 
as  popular  as  the  sphinx  itself.  This  was  a  quad- 
rangular stock  greatly  elongated,  from  which 
there  evolved  at  the  top  a  bust,  generally  a 
woman's,  and  below,  two  human  feet ;  bust  and 
feet  sometimes  carved  out  of  the  wooden  stock 
itself  and  sometimes  made  of  gilt  bronze  (Fig.  89). 
Has  not  even  an  arm-chair  had  to  endure  the 
infliction  of  two  of  these  terminal  caryatids 
acting  both  as  front  legs  and  supports  for  its 
arms  ?  Let  us  add  the  swans,  which  this  style 
used  up  in  astonishing  quantities ;  very  much 
employed  as  arm  consoles,  or  as  the  whole  arms 
of  arm-chairs  or  sofas,  they  have  even  been  seen 
in  certain  arm-chairs  forming  the  legs  with  their 


EMPIRE  BRONZES       107 

bodies  and  with  their  wings  the  arms  of  that 
truly  monstrous  seat.  Needless  to  say  that  these 
designs  arc  tolerable  only  if  the  carving  or  the 
chasing  is  excellent,  the  style  vigorous,  the  lines 
perfectly  pure  ;  it  is  here  that  the  beauty  of  the 
workmanship  must  make  itself  felt  to  render  the 
strangeness  of  the  conception  at  all  possible  to 
accept  ;  if  the  workmanship  is  merely  common- 
place, without  tone,  the  whole  thing  is  nothing 
but  ridiculous. 

Lastly,  it  was  necessary  to  decorate  those  vast 
flat  surfaces  of  dark  polished  mahogany,  which, 
according  to  the  light,  are  at  one  time  all  gloomy 
and  dull,  and  at  another  vanish  in  dazzling  reflec- 
tions. No  period  ever  made  more  use  of  gilt 
brass  for  the  decoration  of  its  furniture.  Here 
evolution  still  goes  on.  Pieces  belonging  to  the 
Louis  XV  Style  often  have  a  great  many  bronzes, 
but,  especially  on  simple  furniture,  they  all  have 
some  use,  or,  if  you  wdll,  a  pretext  of  usefulness, 
such  as  handles,  keyhole  escutcheons,  protective 
corner  fittings,  very  few  are  pure  ornaments.  In 
the  next  epoch  gilt  bronzes  and  brasses  that  are 
purely  decorative  are  multiplied  in  friezes  of 
entrelacs^  in  framings ;  under  the  Empire  the 
great  majority  of  bronzes  are  nothing  more  than 
flat  decorations,  decorations  that  might  go  any- 
where, that  could  be  fixed  (and  were  fixed)  as 
well  on  the  traverse  of  a  chimney-piece  or  the 
base  of  a  clock  as  on  the  flap  of  an  escritoire,  for 
they  were  made  for  no  definite  use  or  settled 
place.     It  seems  that  Empire  furniture  disguises 


io8    EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

whatever  is  useful  in  it,  the  keyholes  are  often 
all  but  invisible,  drawers  have  no  handles,  and 
are  pulled  out  by  the  key,  or  if  they  have,  they 
are  hanging  rings  framing  rosaces^  as  under 
Louis  XVI,  ov  p uteres  (Figs.  87  and  88),  or  little 
flat  cups,  reductions  of  those  that  hold  up  the 
bands  of  curtains ;  a  itvf  feet  away  they  might  be 
taken  for  ornamental  rosaces  only. 

Another  characteristic  of  these  bronzes  is  that 
they  are  each  isolated  in  its  own  place,  without 
connection  with  the  others  or  the  piece  of  furni- 
ture as  a  whole,  and  juxtaposed  v^th  no  attention 
to  the  harmony  of  the  scale  ;  each  one  is  interest- 
ing in  itself  and  must  be  considered  apart.  They 
are,  besides,  often  very  remarkable  for  the 
ingenious  symmetry  of  their  composition,  the 
incisive  clearness  of  their  lines,  the  feeling  the 
bronze  worker  had  of  what  a  light  silhouette 
showing  up  against  a  dark  ground  ought  to  be, 
lastly,  and  above  all,  by  their  chasing  and  their 
gilding,  which  in  fine  pieces  are  superb.^  Once 
the  fixed  ideas  of  the  style  are  admitted,  when 
the  eye  has  grown  accustomed  to  this  systematic 
symmetry  and  stiffness,  and  this  cold  simplifi- 
cation of  modelling  in  the  human  face,  it  must 
be  recognised  that  the  bronzes  made  by  Thomire 
towards  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  or  by  Ravrio, 
are  among  the  finest  in  existence. 

Almost  all  the  motifs  that  appear  in  these 
ornaments  are  borrowed  from  Greco- Roman  or 

*The  bronzes  on  the  escritoire  in  Fig.  86  are  very  good 
examples  of  these  various  qualities. 


ORNAMENTS  109 

Egyptian  architecture,  some  from  the  Italian 
Renaissance.  A  deliberate  reaction  against  the 
past  is  displayed  in  the  fact  that  the  antique 
elements  already  drawn  upon  by  the  style  of  the 
preceding  period  are  nearly  all  abandoned, 
fluting,  for  example,  triglyphs,  entrelacs^  etc. 
The  antique  styles  from  which  inspiration  is 
most  frequently  drawn  are  the  primitive  Doric, 
which  is  not  considered  even  severe  enough,  the 
fluting  is  taken  from  its  pillars ;  and  that  bastard 
order,  that  degenerate  Doric  called  Tuscan ; 
next — another  Roman  invention — that  Corin- 
thian style  overloaded  with  ornamentation  known 
as  composite.  To  elements  taken  from  temple 
architecture — acanthus  leaves,  but  stiff  and 
flattened  out,  heavy  rinceaux^  rosaces^  big 
tight-woven  wreaths  of  a  funereal  aspect  (Fig.  89), 
Greek  palm  leaves  (Figs.  86  and  89),  and 
rinceaux  made  up  of  the  same  palm  leaves — 
were  added  everything  that  could  be  gleaned 
from  altars,  tombs,  the  painted  walls  of  Pompeii, 
pieces  of  Roman  goldsmiths'  work.  First  of  all  the 
human  figure,  Victories  with  palms  or  wreaths, 
sometimes  mounted  on  a  triumphal  car,  goddesses 
with  tunics  like  ships'  sails  bellying  in  the  wind, 
with  floating  scarves ;  Greek  dancing  girls ; 
sacrificial  scenes  (Fig.  86),  heads  of  Bacchus 
crowned  with  vine  shoots,  Gorgon's  heads  with 
snake  tresses,  heads  of  Hermes  with  the  winged 
petasus,  heads  of  Apollo  bristling  wdth  rays  of 
light.  .  .  .  Then  the  animal  world,  all  the 
monsters  we  have  seen  employed  as   supports, 


no  EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

chimaeras  of  every  kind,  with  tails  flowing  away 
in  rinceaux ;  and  lions,  and  swans  with 
beribboned  necks,  and  Psyche's"^ butterfly,  rams' 
heads,  horses'  heads,  masks  of  wild  beasts.  .  .  . 
The  vegetable  world  supplied  very  little,  garlands 
of  vines,  palms  (Fig.  97),  laurel  boughs  stiffened, 
simplified,  dried  up  to  a  semblance  of  acacia 
leaves ;  flowers  of  no  definite  species,  with  four 
petals ;  lastly,  poppies  greatly  used  in  rinceaux^ 
on  beds,  of  course,  and  night  tables.  Finally  a 
multitude  of  objects  of  every  sort  and  kind : 
crossed  cornucopias,  amphoras,  shallow  cups, 
craters.  Mercury's  caduceus,  the  Bacchantes' 
thyrsus,  the  winged  thunderbolt  of  Jupiter, 
Neptune's  trident ;  weapons,  swords,  lances, 
Boeotian  casques,  bucklers ;  musical  instruments, 
tubas,  sistrums,  lyres  and  clappers ;  winged 
torches,  winged  quivers,  winged  trumpets,  lamps, 
tripods.  .  .  .  Everything  is  good,  so  long  as  it 
is  Greek  or  Roman.  The  designers  and  cabinet- 
makers of  the  period  are  hardly  endowed  with 
powers  of  invention,  besides,  it  is  not  their  duty 
to  invent,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  what 
they  borrow  on  every  hand  they  know  how  to 
turn  to  account  with  rare  ingenuity  of  adaptation 
and  handling,  ingenuity  the  more  meritorious  in 
that  it  can  only  be  exercised  within  limits  laid 
down  by  the  most  inflexible  discipline  that  ever 
existed. 

We  have  already  indicated  the  essential  charac- 
teristics belonging  to  the  technique  of  Empire 


FLAT    GILDING  iii 

furniture :  very  little  carving,  except  on  seats, 
little  or  no  use  of  moulding,  the  employment  on 
a  large  scale  of  veneering  in  enormous  surfaces, 
the  complete  disappearance  of  marquetry,  and  in 
certain  very  refined  furniture  the  inlaying  of 
metals,  even  silver,  in  mahogany.  Mahogany 
v^as  the  wood  by  far  the  most  usually  employed, 
either  solid  or  as  veneer  ;  home  grov^n  woods,  and 
notably  our  admirable  walnut,  were  abandoned ; 
several  cabinet-makers  however,  among  others 
Boudon-Goubeau,  attempted  to  bring  into 
fashion,  in  those  days  of  war  with  England  when 
exotic  woods  only  arrived  with  great  difficulty  in 
our  ports,  knot  elm,  a  fine  material  of  a  warm 
reddish  colour,  with  curiously  writhed  and 
twisted  patterns,  and  yew  tree  root ;  there  were 
made  certain  furniture  for  bedrooms  of  light 
coloured  woods,  maple  or  lemon  wood. 

Bronzes  were  always  flat-gilt  \  the  process  had 
been,  it  appears,  discovered  by  the  great  ciseleiir 
Gouthiere.  Some  of  them  had  projecting  parts 
and  details  of  ornamentation  burnished,  or 
polished  and  made  bright  afterwards  with  the 
burnisher,  a  very  debatable  practice  which 
makes  the  modelling  partly  disappear.  But 
bronzes  were  not  the  only  applied  ornaments 
with  which  furniture  was  decorated.  Under 
Louis  XVI  there  had  been  seen  small  lady's 
pieces,  and  even  tables-bureaux  of  pronounced 
masculinity,  adorned  with  Sevres  plaques  pat- 
terned with  flowers.  Naturally  under  Napoleon 
this  was  looked  on  as  in  mean  and  petty  taste ; 


112  EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

but  the  English  firm  of  Wedgwood  had  now  for 
a  long  time  been  making  its  famous  plaques  with 
bas-reliefs  in  white  biscuit  on  a  blue  ground, 
which  in  spite  of  their  affectedness  deserved  to 
find  a  place  on  the  most  "antique"  pieces  of 
furniture,  since  they  were  in  the  fashion  of  the 
moment  and  had  for  subjects  nothing  but 
ancient  scenes ;  our  antiquo-maniacs  never  looked 
closer  into  the  matter  than  this.  It  is  told  that 
when  Jacob  Desmalter  was  summoned  to  England 
to  furnish  Windsor  Castle  anew,  he  was  seized 
with  enthusiasm  for  these  delicate  "cameos," 
and  ordered  great  numbers,  which  were  designed 
by} Henry  Howard,  and  later  on  he  inlaid  them 
in  bureaux  de  dames^  the  frames  of  tables  and 
of  beds ;  their  fragility  has  made  them  of  ex- 
treme rarity  to-day.  Other  cameos  were  of  brass 
enamelled  in  relief. 

As  we  have  seen,  marquetry  had  completely 
fallen  into  disgrace,  but  inlaying  was  employed 
often  enough.  Lemon  wood  and  maple  were 
inlaid  with  brown  woods ;  knot  elm  and  mahogany 
with  ebony  mixed  with  brass  and  even  steel; 
and  when  it  was  desired  to  make  a  quite  excep- 
tional piece,  recourse  was  had  to  materials  and 
combinations  rarer  still :  the  gilt  wood  throne 
of  Napoleon  in  Fontainebleau,  which  is  so  un- 
graceful with  its  back  shaped  in  a  perfect  circle, 
has  arms  terminating  with  balls  of  ivory  sprinkled 
with  mother-of-pearl  stars. 

To  decorate  seats  with  metal  ornaments  is 
rather  doubtful  in  point  of  logic,  yet  it  was  done 


INFERIOR  WORKMANSHIP   113 

under  the  Empire,  though  rarely.  They  have, 
as  a  rule,  carvings  in  low  relief  ;  if  they  are  made 
of  mahogany  these  carvings  are  sometimes  gilt ; 
if  they  are  painted  the  ground  is  light  coloured, 
grey,  vi^hite,  straw,  and  the  ornaments  in  relief, 
like  the  flat  mouldings  that  enframe  them,  are 
in  a  much  darker  colour  which  shows  up  strongly, 
unless  they  are  gilt,  which  is  also  very  frequently 
the  case.  Lastly,  there  are  always  seats  gilt  all 
over.  Consoles,  tables  and  screens  are  also  de- 
corated in  the  same  fashion. 

These  various  methods  are  carried  out,  in  the 
case  of  rich  pieces,  with  an  absolute  and  veritable 
perfection  ;  in  craftsmanship  there  is  nothing  to 
surpass  the  cabinet-maker's  art  displayed  in  the 
fine  work  of  Jacob  :  the  careful  selection  of  the 
materials,  the  exquisite  exactness  of  the  joints, 
the  meticulous  execution  of  the  veneering,  the 
finish — perhaps  even  excessive — of  the  bronzes, 
nothing  whatever  is  lacking.  On  the  other  hand, 
ordinary  furniture  is  very  inferior  to  that  of  the 
preceding  century.  Under  the  uniform  cloak  of 
films  of  mahogany  how  much  sapwood  there  is 
instead  of  good  sound  stuff,  how  many  joints 
where  glue  takes  the  place  of  dowels !  Makers 
less  conscientious  since  the  guilds  were  dissolved ; 
buyers  looking  for  something  cheap  that  gives 
the  same  effect;  how  should  the  honest  work- 
manship of  old  days  stand  against  these  two 
cankers  ?  Everything  that  once  was  solid  is  now 
veneered,  down  to  arm-chairs,  down  to  the  round 
legs  of  tables  and  the  pillars  of  commodes ;  and 


114  EMPIRE  FURNITURE 

if  this  veneering  is  not  done  with  the  very  utmost 
care  its  solidity  can  be  imagined.  This  was  the 
time  when  one  Gardeur  devised  a  way  of  re- 
placing carvings  by  ornaments  made  of  moulded 
and  lacquered  pasteboard ;  and  for  this  fine  in- 
vention he  was  awarded  a  medal  at  an  industrial 
exhibition  !  "  Plaster,"  say  Percier  and  Fontaine, 
^'  takes  the  place  of  marble,  paper  plays  at  being 
painting,  pasteboard  mimics  the  labours  of  the 
graving  tool,  glass  takes  the  place  of  precious 
stones,  varnish  simulates  porphyry."  In  fur- 
niture, as  in  other  things,  the  era  of  the  counter- 
feit is  beginning. 


CHAPTER  II  :    VARIOUS 
ARTICLES    OF    FURNITURE 
AND    THEIR    USE 

The  armoires  of  the  time  of  the  Revolution  diflFer 
very  little  from  those  of  the  pure  Louis  XVI 
Style.     The  one  we  reproduce    (Fig.    84)    is   a 
transition  piece  with  very  marked  characteristics. 
The  flutings  of  the  lower  traverse,  the  legs,  the 
chamfered  corners  and  the  neutral  part  of  the 
fagade,  the  frieze  of   simplified  entrelacs  that 
reigns  under  the  cornice,  the  lower  panels  of  the 
doors,  all  that  is  Louis  XVI ;  but  the  following 
details  proclaim  a  new  style  :  the  sharp-ridged 
flutings  of    the  cornice,  which  are  Doric,  and 
above  all  the  little  middle  panels  of  the  doors 
with  their  lozenges,  and  the  upper  panels  with 
blunt-cornered  lozenges ;  the  lozenge  either  com- 
plete or  truncated  is  one  of  the  motifs  that  are 
most  frequently  repeated  in  Directoire  furniture.* 
Under  the  Empire  armoires  have  less  decoration  : 
large  door  panels  in   a  single  piece  and   quite 
plain,  angles  often  accompanied  by  pillars  with 
bases,  rings  and  capitals  made  of  gilt  and  engine- 
turned  brass,  the  pediment  triangular  like  that 
of  a  Greek  temple,  or  else  a  simple  horizontal 
cornice.     And  armoires  with  mirrors  now  make 
their  disagreeable    appearance  just  at  the  same 

*  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  ironwork  is  not  "  of  the 
period  " ;  it  is  older  still  than  the  piece  itself ;  the  curves  of  the 
Louis  XV  Style  can  readily  be  recognised  in  it. 

115 


ii6   EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

time,  strangely  enough,  as  i!tit  psyches  or  cheval 
glasses  that  rendered  them  happily  unnecessary. 
The  under  cupboard,  or  commode  with  doors, 
continues  to  be  commonly  met  with  in  salons 
and  in  dining-rooms  used  as  a  buffet ;  it  is  often 
painted  and  carved  with  Pompeiian  figures  on  its 
doors,  or  Greek  arabesques,  if  it  is  not  made  of 
mahogany  with  gilt  metal  work. 

Large  or  small,  for  men  or  ladies,  the  escritoire 
with  a  drop  front  is  more  in  favour  than  ever. 
Under  the  Republic  it  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  that  of  the  Louis  XVI  period  except  by  its 
ornamentation.  The  lozenge  still  takes  the  lion's 
share  ;  in  the  model  which  we  have  photographed 
(Fig.  85)  it  is  accompanied  by  stars  and  by  fillets 
enframing  panels,  the  whole  being  of  brass  inlaid 
in  mahogany.  Empire  escritoires  have  in  the 
upper  part,  under  the  marble  top,  a  cornice 
filled  by  a  drawer,  the  uprights  are  pillars, 
terminals  with  heads  of  gilded  bronze  or  bronze 
of  a  dull  patina,  chimaeras,  swans  with  lifted 
wings.  The  interior  shows  a  kind  of  niche  with 
a  mirror  back.  Small  ladies'  escritoires  have  the 
shape,  already  seen  under  Louis  XVI,  of  a  square 
box  upborne  on  legs  that  are  now  chimaeras, 
lions  with  one  paw  or  caryatid  terminals  resting 
on  a  base ;  the  back  of  the  lower  part  is  furnished 
with  a  mirror  that  has  no  occasion  or  excuse  for 
its  existence  in  this  position. 

The  bonheur  du  jour  shares  in  the  general 
transformation,  it  becomes  monumental,  like  the 
rest,    within    its    lesser   proportions.    We   give 


ROUND   TABLES  117 

(Fig.  86)  a  very  notable  specimen.  We  may  not 
like  that  base  weighing  so  heavily  upon  the  ground, 
those  square  pilaster  uprights  like  beams,  those 
conventional  lion's  heads,  w^ith  their  Egyptian 
head-dress,  that  tall  massive  superstructure  w^ith 
its  wretched  projecting  cornice,  but  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  sum  total  has  a  magnificent 
breadth — ^very  far  from  feminine,  it  is  true — and 
that  the  bronzes  are  surpassingly  fine. 

The  Greeks  and  the  Romans  had  hardly  any 
but  round  tables,  and  so  nearly  all  the  tables  of 
the  Empire  Style  are  round.  In  short,  they  are 
magnified  gueridoits.  The  top,  as  often  as  it  is 
possible,  is  a  heavy  marble  or  porphyry  disc  rest- 
ing on  a  framework  of  wood,  plain  or  decorated 
with  bronzes ;  some  are  supported  by  a  thick 
central  pillar,  which  itself  rests  on  a  base  nearly 
always  in  the  shape  of  a  curvilinear  triangle  with 
deeply  concave  sides ;  other  have  four,  or  most 
frequently  three  feet.  Naturally  when  these  legs 
are  not  pillars  with  base  and  capital  of  gilt  brass, 
they  are  caryatides,  every  imaginable  kind  of  cary- 
atides, in  gilt  bronze,  in  bronze  of  green  or  black 
patina,  in  mahogany  with  or  without  bronze  parts. 
AH  the  monsters  that  the  Greeks  had  taken  from 
Egypt  and  the  East,  or  had  themselves  made  up 
with  perverse  and  exotic  ingenuity,  met  together 
under  these  tables,  where  they  are  seated  as  grave 
and  patient  as  dogs  waiting  till  someone  throws 
them  a  bone.  There  are  Egyptian  sphinxes,  as 
hieratic  as  heart  can  wish,  the  pschent  on  their 
h^ad  and  shoulders,  Greek  sphinxes,  more  amiable 


ii8  EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

things  with  wings  aloft  and  meeting  towards  the 
middle  of  the  table ;  winged  lions,  their  heads 
dressed  up  in  the  Egyptian  style,  or  their  manes 
conventionalised  in  flat  regularly  ordered  locks ; 
griffins  whose  cruel  eagle  heads  dart  furious 
looks ;  and  that  poor  one-legged  lion  doomed,  with 
the  head  and  paw  to  which  he  is  reduced,  to  hop 
for  ever.  And  again  there  are  termes^  or  caryatid 
terminals  without  feet  and  with  a  virile  bearded 
head,  and  even  those  caryatides  with  women's 
heads  and  busts  that  are  simply  maids  of  all  work. 
These  supports  rest  on  a  base,  a  triangle  or  a 
cross,  according  to  the  number  of  the  feet,  which 
is  sometimes  adorned  with  a  bronze  cup  at 
the  centre. 

Smaller  tables  are  mostly  ^uerzdons  of  circular 
or  octagonal  shape,  with  a  central  pillar  or  three 
incurving  legs,  joined  at  their  middle  by  a  ring 
or  a  small  shelf  and  ending  in  lions'  claws ;  or 
else  those  antique  tripods  we  have  seen  making 
their  appearance  under  Louis  XVI,  with  their 
hionze pi'eds  de  biche  legs  surmounted  by  small 
sphinxes,  or  their  lion  feet.  Tea-tables,  work- 
tables  (this  is  the  name  now  given  to  the 
chtffonmeres  of  other  days)  often  comprise  a 
cassolette  to  burn  perfumes ;  this  is  a  new 
fashion  that  is  considered  to  be  very  Greek. 

The  consoles  are  rectangular,  occasionally  but 
not  often  half-moon  shaped.  At  the  very  out- 
set of  the  style  (Figs.  87  and  88),  they  have  for 
their  supports  pillars  starting  up  from  an  under- 
shelf,  which  is  itself  borne  on  ton  vie  feet ;  the  top 


THE   DRESSING-TABLE   119 

is  white  marble,  the  sides  are  sometimes  curved 
inwards.  The  classic  Empire  console  rests  on  a 
base,  its  front  legs  are  terminals  with  an  antique 
head  or  some  other  form  of  caryatid,  the  back, 
between  the  legs,  is  often  fitted  with  a  mirror. 
It  is  made  of  mahogany  with  a  top  of  dark 
marble  or  porphyry.  Another  type,  painted  in 
a  light  colour  with  carvings  either  gilt  or  painted 
in  a  different  shade,  has  a  white  marble  top  and 
its  front  legs  are  carved  pilasters.  Let  us  note 
by  the  way  the  strange  invention  of  some  cabinet- 
maker hunting  for  novelty  at  all  costs,  the 
console-commode,  which  is  not  the  "open 
commode"  of  1780,  but  a  commode  made  of 
mahogany,  with  drawers,  fitted  under  a  console 
of  carved  gilt  and  painted  wood,  with  a  white 
marble  top. 

The  toilette  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which 
was  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  piece  of  all 
the  furniture  of  that  lovable  epoch,  disappeared 
at  the  end  of  the  century  by  dividing  and 
duplicating  itself.  Henceforth  a  smart  woman 
must  have  her  table-coiffeuse,  or  dressing-table, 
and  her  lavabo.  The  table-coiffeuse  is  rect- 
angular and  stands  on  X-shaped  or  lyre-shaped 
legs  ;  its  white  marble  is  surmounted  by  a  round, 
or  oval,  or  rectangular  mirror  a  pans  coupds, 
which  is  held  up,  by  means  of  two  pivots  allowing 
it  to  be  sloped  as  you  please,  on  uprights  of  gilt 
bronze  in  the  form  of  quivers  or  torches 
equipped  with  branching  candelabra.  Further- 
more, it  was  possible  to  transform  into  a  table- 


I20  EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

coiffeuse  any  table  whatever,  a  console  or  by 
simply  standing  on  it  a  mirror  of  the  same  kind, 
only  movable,  and  not  so  large,  and  mounted  on 
a  wooden  base  containing  a  drawer,  in  short  a 
miniature  cheval  glass.  As  for  the  lavabo^  it  is 
the  athentenne  brought  to  perfection :  an 
antique  tripod  in  two  tiers,  one  carrying  a  basin, 
the  other,  the  lower  one,  a  ewer.  Two  swan- 
neck  uprights  carry,  above  and  at  the  back,  a 
round  mirrror  and  a  towel  rail. 

The  bureau  continues  to  have  a  roll  top,  or 
else  it  is  of  the  shape  called  bureau  77tmistrey 
with  pedestals  of  superposed  drawers  on  each 
side  of  the  opening  left  for  the  legs  of  the  writer  ; 
when  this  opening  is  semi-circular  the  whole  piece 
has  exactly  the  look  of  a  triumphal  arch,  and  if, 
as  it  does  happen,  this  monument  stands  upon 
eight  lions'  feet  its  aspect  is  not  lacking  in  the 
unexpected.  Let  us  add  the  monumental  book- 
case-bureau, on  which  terminals  and  caryatides 
flourish  more  than  ever.  Bureaux  for  ladies  are 
now  only  of  the  bonheur  dujour  type  we  have 
already  described :  the  last  of  the  bureaux  h 
dessus  brise^  with  sloped  fronts,  are  made  during 
the  Revolution.  Here  (Fig.  90)  is  a  curious 
specimen  on  which  republican  emblems  are  dis- 
played in  marquetry,  the  red  cap  and  the  pike. 

Let  us  not  forget  the  flower-tables,  they  have 
become  indispensable  everywhere.  Percier  and 
Fontaine  designed  some  which  were  regular 
edifices  with  two  and  three  stories,  embellished 
with  fountains,  basins  of  gold  fish,  a  statue  of 


EMPIRE   BEDSTEADS     121 

Flora,  and  the  rest.  Simple  models  for  ante- 
chambers were  made  of  sheet  iron,  painted  and 
lacquered,  and  stood  on  legs  of  wood  or  metal. 

Beds  underwent  very  considerable  change  of 
shape  from  1790  to  1804  or  1805.  Those  of  the 
revolutionary  epoch  are  of  two  main  types,  not 
counting  the  extravagant  affairs  we  have  referred 
to,  beds  "  k  la  Federation"  and  others  of  the 
same  kind,  which  were  hardly  ever  actually  made. 
Now  it  is  Louis  XVI  "angel  beds"  with  a  few 
new  details ;  the  head  and  foot  are  surmounted 
by  triangular  pediments,  often  decorated  in  the 
middle  with  a  kind  of  antique  vase  (tint  soup tere)^ 
the  uprights  are  balusters  ending  in  pine  cones,  or 
tiny  urns,  and  carrying  at  the  base  and  at  the 
top  those  rectangles  with  horizontal  stripes,  those 
daisies  surrounded  or  not  surrounded  by  lozenges, 
which  distinguish  the  carved  furniture  of  this 
period.  And  now  it  is  beds  with  head  and  foot 
alike  and  rolled  like  the  backs  of  the  chairs  of  the 
same  time  (Fig.  99)-  They  exhibit  the  same 
characteristics,  antique  legs,  marguerites,  lozenges, 
soupieres^  and  so  on.  Beds  of  this  type,  being 
decorated  on  all  four  surfaces,  have  the  advantage 
of  being  able  to  be  placed  either  with  their  end 
or  their  side  against  the  wall. 

But  when  the  Empire  Style  is  fully  established 
beds  assume  a  totally  different  shape.  They  are 
intended  to  be  seen  from  the  side,  or  even,  most 
frequently,  to  be  placed  in  alcoves ;  of  their  four 
faces  only  one  of  the  side  faces  is  to  be  visible, 
;ind  this  decides  their  whole  architecture.    They 


122   EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

are  given  the  name  of  ^*boat  beds,"  and  in  fact 
with  a  little  goodwill  one  can  see  a  vague 
resemblance  to  a  skiff  with  very  high  prow  and 
stern.  The  head  and  foot  are  of  exactly  the  same 
height,  and  in  shape  are  closely  copied  from 
certain  Greek  beds,  a  little  sloped  with  a  roll 
at  the  top,  they  deepen  towards  the  lower  part 
and  often  the  traverse  forming  the  side  of  the 
bed  is  of  a  concave  line  to  continue  the  curve  of 
the  head  and  foot  without  a  break.  The 
ornamentation  of  gilt  bronze  often  includes  two 
large  palms  occupying  the  whole  height  of  the 
head  and  the  foot  and  following  their  curves. 
This  shape  is  not  without  elegance ;  but  the 
head  and  foot,  being  very  deep  at  the  base  and 
diminishing  towards  the  top  until  they  end  in  a 
small  and  rather  mean  volute,  are  likely  to  show 
a  poor  and  arid  profile.  That  is  the  classic  type 
of  Empire  bed ;  there  are  others  with  vertical 
head  and  foot  and  columns  or  pilasters  for 
uprights,  crowned  with  globes  sprinkled  with 
gold  stars,  antique  heads  and  so  forth ;  they  are 
meant  like  the  others  to  be  seen  from  the  side. 

The  variety  of  Empire  seats  is  much  greater 
than  might  be  imagined.  Less  comfortable  as  a 
rule  than  those  of  the  Louis  XVI  period,  they 
have  stiffer  and  heavier  lines,  the  supports  of  the 
arms  of  the  arm-chairs  are  perpendicular,  they 
are  a  direct  continuation  of  the  line  of  the  legs, 
and  often  even  leg  and  arm  support  form  one 
single  motifs  a  caryatid,  a  one-footed  lion,  a  flat 
baluster,  an  antique  sword  in  its  scabbard.     Tlie 


EMPIRE   CHAIRS         123 

back  legs  are  curved  backwards  and  the  front  legs 
are  vertical,  the  back  is  rectangular,  flat  or 
hoUow^ed  to  "  shovel  shape."  But  there  are  also 
many  other  shapes.  In  fact  there  perhaps  never 
was  any  epoch  when  more  attempts  were  made 
at  new  combinations  of  lines  for  seats.  Certain 
arm-chairs,  quite  like  those  of  the  time  of  Louis 
XV,  have  hardly  a  single  straight  line  in  them. 
Indeed,  if  the  Empire  Style  is  prone  to  seek 
for  broad  simple  lines,  they  are  by  no  means 
always  straight  lines ;  we  have  just  seen  this  in 
the  case  of  the  "  boat  "  beds.  And  so  we  meet 
with  chair  backs  whose  profile  forms  a  line  of  the 
shape  of  an  elongated  S,  continuous,  with  no 
visible  break,  through  the  side  traverse  of  the 
chair  up  to  the  very  top  of  the  front  leg; 
"  gondola "  chairs  whose  back,  hollowed  into  a 
half  cylinder,  is  joined  to  these  same  front  legs 
by  a  hollow  curve  ;  arms  without  consoles  that 
end  in  huge  open  volutes  resting  directly  on  the 
top  of  the  legs,  an  arrangement  that  remained  in 
favour  up  to  the  middle  of  the  century;  and 
many  other  manipulations  of  lines,  variants  with 
more  or  less  logic  or  grace,  but  of  which  some 
are  real  happy  finds  that  our  contemporary 
artists  have  not  failed  to  profit  by. 

Before  the  Empire,  properly  so  called,  there 
are  two  types  met  with  above  all  others.  These 
are,  first,  seats  still  near  the  Louis  XVI  type, 
whose  back,  stuffed  and  slightly  concave,  has 
sides  that  spread  out  towards  the  top,  making 
*'  horns"  more  or  less  accentuated  (Fig,  95);  the 


124  EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

uprights  of  these  backs  are  in  one  piece  with  the 
back  legs,  which  are  curved  outwards,  and  these 
chairs  present  a  very  elegant  line. 

The  others  are  seats  with  rolled  backs  (Figs.  91, 
92  and  93).  The  back,  curved  outwards  like  the 
legs  that  are  in  continuation  with  it,  is  of  plain 
bare  wood  painted  in  bright  colours  when  it  is 
not  mahogany,  and  more  or  less  open-worked. 
The  top  is  made  of  a  broad  cambered  traverse, 
which,  if  solid,  carries  an  ornament  carved  in 
relief,  a  soupiere  (Fig.  91),  rtnceaux  or  running 
foliage,  sphinxes  facing  each  other,  a  lozenge 
with  radiating  stripes  that  recall  the  idea  of  a 
daisy,  etc. ;  these  carvings  are  often  painted 
cameo  fashion.  Below  this  traverse  there  is  an 
open-work  motifs  a  palm  leaf,  a  grille  with  lozenge 
openings,  etc.  If  the  top  of  the  back  is  also 
pierced,  it  presents  an  opening  (Fig.  93)  that 
allows  the  chair  to  be  easily  taken  hold  of  in 
order  to  move  it  about,  or  else  (Fig.  92)  a  turned 
bar.  The  supremely  pure  lines  of  the  best  of 
these  chairs,  their  slender,  clear-cut  elegance, 
fined  down,  a  trifle  dry  and  austere,  make  them 
articles  capable  of  satisfying  the  most  fastidious 
taste,  which  are  like  nothing  else,  and  are  pre- 
ferred above  everything  by  certain  very  refined 
and  discriminating  connoisseurs.  The  specimens 
which  we  reproduce,  as  well  as  the  delicate  and 
graceful  bergere  of  Fig.  94,  carry  the  stamp  of 
the  brothers  Jacob  ;  their  faultless  workman- 
ship makes  them  very  strong  in  spite  of  their 
slightness. 


CHAIR   ARMS  125 

Whether  they  are  of  the  one  type  or  the  other, 
chairs  of  the  Revolutionary  period  have  their 
front  legs  turned  and  quiver-shaped  or  balusters ; 
the  arms  of  the  arm-chairs  end  in  round  knobs 
(Fig.  95),  in  little  volutes  (Figs.  93  and  94),  or 
else  they  are  cut  oflf  square  and  have  a  daisy 
carved  in  relief  on  the  top  of  the  extremities 
(Fig.  92).  The  consoles  are  balusters  or  little 
pillars.  The  carved  ornament,  soberer  than 
sober,  consists  of  daisies,  lozenges,  fillets  in  relief, 
serrated  lines,  etc.,  which  are  painted  in  a  dark 
colour  when  the  chair  is  painted  light.  Let  us 
not  forget  a  very  characteristic  ornament,  the 
little  palm  leaf  (Figs.  93  and  94),  or  the  shell 
(Fig.  92)  that  surmounts  the  point  where  the 
arm  of  the  arm-chair  springs  from  the  upright. 

Under  the  Empire  seats  are  not  so  elegant, 
more  massive,  richer,  more  comfortable  also,  and 
the  back  is  invariably  stuffed.  Arm-chair  arms 
are  often,  in  imitation  of  the  Greek  ceremonial 
thrones,  winged  chimaeras  or  swans,  whose  wings 
are  brought  back  and  raised  at  the  tips,  carrying 
the  stuffed  pads,  and  join  the  uprights  of  the 
back.  Wits  are  stretched,  and  all  ingenuity 
brought  into  play  to  discover  antique  or  near- 
antique  objects  that  might  be  turned  into  arms, 
for  instance,  military  bell-trumpets  in  the  shape 
of  a  dolphin's  head.  Simpler  arms  are  square  or 
cylindrical,  they  are  often  enough  mortised  into 
the  head  of  the  consoles,  on  top  of  which  is 
placed  a  kind  of  carved  pommel ;  or  else  it  is  the 
arm  into  which  the  console  is  driven,  and  which 


126   EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

ends  in  a  flat  section  ornamented  with  ^fleuron. 
The  top  of  the  back  as  a  rule  is  straight,  the 
traverse  forming  it  is  fairly  broad  and  presents, 
between  two  flat  mouldings,  a  carved  plat-band 
which  answers  to  that  of  the  front  of  the  seat. 
The  front  legs  are  square  pilasters  with  carved 
plat-band  or  turned  quiver«shape,  frequently 
pinched  in  the  middle  by  a  bracelet.  Seats  are 
now  beginning  to  be  regularly  upholstered  it 
elastiqueSy  that  is  to  say  with  springs. 

It  was  at  this  period  were  created  the  last 
models  of  straw  chairs  that  were  in  any  degree 
treated  with  care,  the  last  whose  shape  is  of  any 
interest.  The  back  is  made  of  a  row  of  balusters 
turned  in  spindle-shape,  and  surmounted  by  a 
broad  traverse  more  or  less  cambered.  Another 
type  of  back  shows  a  flat  central  motifs  pierced 
and  carved,  and  an  arched  traverse  that  to  right 
and  left  projects  beyond  the  uprights.  The 
arms  of  straw  arm-chairs  keep  the  Louis  XV  and 
Louis  XVI  shape  with  consoles  set  back  or 
consoles  that  continue  the  legs  but  curve  out- 
wards. This  last  type  of  straw  chair  persisted 
till  about  1830. 

Empire  sofas  do  not  demand  any  special  de- 
scription as  they  were  hardly  anything  but 
magnified  arm-chairs.  There  is  one  new  shape 
however  to  chronicle,  the  sofa  a  la  Pommier^ 
whose  very  low  back  comes  out  in  front  at  a  right 
angle  to  form  the  arms.  As  for  chaises  longues^ 
they  are  hardly  ever  made  brisee  now,  they  are 
of  two  kinds,  each  imitated  from   antique  rest 


HEROIC  &  ERUDITE   STYLE    127 

beds.  Some  have  head  and  foot  exactly  alike 
and  sloped,  like  the  one  in  David's  studio  that 
has  been  made  famous  by  the  portrait  of  Madame 
Recamier,  or  else  unequal  (Fig.  98).  Others, 
called  ineridiennes^  have  three  dossiers^  the 
one  by  the  head  is  higher  and  is  joined  to  that 
at  the  foot  by  a  straight  line,  or,  more  grace- 
fully, by  a  long  S-shaped  curve  (Fig.  97).  All 
are  more  or  less  akin  to  the  "  boat  "  bed. 

We  have  described  the  arbitrary  and  intolerant 
character  of  this  style;  we  have  shown  how  it 
rose  in  rebellion  against  all  that  had  gone  before 
it.  It  follows  that  Empire  furniture  seldom 
takes  kindly  to  the  presence  near  it  of  Louis  XVI 
or  Louis  XIV  pieces,  and  still  less  to  Louis  XV 
furniture  ;  they  resist  any  amalgamation.  If  we 
wish  to  have  a  room  or  a  flat  in  this  style,  it  will 
therefore  be  essential  that  the  furniture  should 
be  homogeneous  down  to  the  smallest  details,  or 
else  it  would  be  better  to  give  up  the  idea. 

It  is  a  style,  too,  that  constantly  aims  at  the 
grandiose,  a  grave  majesty;  in  short,  a  heroic 
and  learned  style.  It  lacks  intimacy,  it  is  not 
very  lovable,  not  very  comfortable,  chilly,  and 
more  masculine  than  feminine.  In  a  royal 
residence  or  an  ambassadorial  mansion  it  is  com- 
pletely in  keeping  and  will  never  be  unworthy  of 
any  greatness.  If  it  adorns  and  furnishes  the 
library  of  a  savant,  an  architect's  studio,  nothing 
can  be  better ;  a  magistrate's  room  will  also  be 
marked  out  as  its  proper  domain,  or  a  lawyer's, 


128    EMPIRE    FURNITURE 

a  doctor's,  a  financier's,  for  it  is  calculated  to 
help  in  impressing  simple-minded  clients.  But 
a  gay  babel  of  laughing  ladies,  a  light  and  gallant 
tournament  of  flirtation,  or  the  untrammelled 
pouting  and  petulance  of  children,  and  the  day- 
by-day  joys  of  family  life  would  be  a  sort  of 
incongruity  among  the  austere  clan  of  those 
antique  heads,  the  winged  sphinxes  and  lions 
with  scowling  masks,  with  their  fixed  looks,  in- 
timidating like  a  mute  reproach.  The  Empire 
Style  then  we  consider  should  be  reserved  for 
formal  and  ceremonious  rooms,  such  as  oSices, 
studies,  board-rooms,  libraries  and  the  like. 

Under  the  Empire  the  walls  of  a  salon  were 
polished  stucco,  with  pilasters  with  gilded  base 
and  capital,  and  frequently  panels  painted  in  a 
more  or  less  antique  style  :  flying  figures, 
allegories,  trophies,  arabesques  in  light-coloured 
camaieu  upon  a  background  of  Etruscan  brown  ; 
above,  a  high  frieze  and  a  cornice  with  gilt  orna- 
mentation. If  the  walls  were  hung,  the  hangings 
were  no  longer  flat  and  stretched,  but  draped 
and  caught  up  at  regular  intervals  by  gold  nails 
or  tassels  so  as  to  form  curving  folds ;  however, 
our  modern  care  for  hygiene  and  cleanliness  will 
lead  us  to  put  aside  with  horror  a  fashion  so 
favourable  to  the  accumulation  of  dust.  The 
windows  were  equipped  with  two  or  three 
curtains,  one  on  top  of  the  other  and  of  different 
colours ;  violet,  brown,  and  white  for  example, 
and  draped  in  the  most  complicated  way.  The 
hangings  in  the  most  elegant  homes  might  be 


WALL   HANGINGS       129 

woollen  material  decorated  with  applique,  as 
well  as  of  silk  ;  and  at  the  same  time  silks  became 
more  and  more  common,  thanks  to  the  newly 
invented  Jacquart  loom.  Besides  the  Genoa 
velvets  and  the  damasks  that  were  continually 
employed,  there  were  on  walls  and  seats  those 
sumptuous  materials  known  as  grands  faconneSy 
and  paduasoy^  and  lampas  brocaded  in' yellow 
on  a  bronze  green  ground,  gold  on  a  violet  or 
brown  ground,  white  on  sky-blue,  with  massive 
wreaths,  rosaces^  compartments  laden  with 
arabesques,  trophies  of  weapons,  antique  figures, 
bands  decorated  with  Greek  palms. 

Often  the  floor  was  left  bare,  but  Turkey 
carpets  were  as  a  special  favour  permitted  in  the 
most  antique  of  interiors.  The  indispensable 
furniture  was,  in  the  middle  of  the  room  a 
heavy  round  table  with  caryatid  supports,  and  a 
marble  or  porphyry  top  ;  along  the  walls  consoles 
on  caryatides  and  fitted  with  mirrors,  monu- 
mental sofas  symmetrically  flanked  with  arm- 
chairs ;  in  one  corner  \\i^  piano-forte^  a  rare  and 
costly  novelty ;  and  that  other  instrument  that 
was  above  everything  characteristically  Empire,  a 
harp.  On  the  chimney-piece  would  be  one  of 
those  amazing  allegorical  timepieces  in  which  the 
oddity  of  invention  is  not  uncommonly  redeemed 
by  the  supreme  beauty  of  the  chasing ;  it  would 
be  protected  by  a  glass  cover  and  accompanied  by 
two  caryatid  candelabra  and  two  vases  of  antique 
shape  made  of  white  porcelain  with  gold  decor- 
ation  and  a  painted   medallion,  these   vases — a 


130  EMPIRE   FURNITURE 

horrible  detail,  but  absolutely  accurate — ^would 
be  adorned  with  artificial  flowers  and  placed 
under  cover.  On  the  console  tables  still  more 
Greek  vases,  jardinieres  of  painted  iron,  alleged 
to  be  in  "  antique  lacquer,"  full  of  flowers,  and 
those  new  lamps  of  Quinquet's  which  in  David's 
studio  it  was  not  thought  unbecoming  to  decorate 
with  paintings. 

Beyond  its  moral  propriety,  if  we  might 
venture  on  the  phrase,  the  Empire  Style  has  one 
great  merit  for  furnishing  a  working  study,  it  is 
easy  to  add  to  the  furniture  of  this  period  a 
modern  bookcase,  or  rather  bookshelves  that  will 
neither  be  incongruous  nor  an  anachronism,  if  they 
are  made  of  polished  mahogany  with  no  other 
ornamentation  but  a  sober  and  classic  moulding. 
A  massive  writing-table  and  commode,  a  console 
with  chimseras,  an  escritoire  with  a  flap  front  or 
an  under  cupboard,  a  round  writing-chair  whose 
back  will  be  low,  in  the  antique  fashion,  and  fit 
well  into  the  sitter's  back,  on  the  chimney-piece 
a  square  clock  of  fine  polished  porphyry  and 
flambeaux  of  black  and  gold  bronze ;  all  this, 
which  will  be  free  from  gaiety  or  frivolity,  will 
be  able  to  exercise  a  kind  of  grave  charm  favour- 
able to  brain  work,  though  one  be  neither  a 
Frederic  Masson  nor  a  d'Esparbes,  provided  the 
carving  of  the  caryatides  and  the  chasing  of  the 
metal  ornaments  are  not  too  vulgar. 

Finally,  as  it  is  not  beyond  the  bounds  of 
possibility  that  someone  may  have  a  whim  to 
sleep  in  an  Empire  room,  let  us  open  our  good 


AN  EMPIRE  BEDROOM   131 

Caillot  for  the  last  time  at  the  page  on  which  he 
briefly  describes  the  room  of  a  'Svell-to-do 
bourgeois,"  a  "tradesman  doing  good  business." 
"  It  is  not  uncommom  to  find  in  their  bedroom, 
besides  the  mirror  that  adorns  the  chimney-piece, 
a  nice  clock  in  front  of  that  mirror,  two  handsome 
flambeaux  of  ormolu,  coloured  wall  paper,  the 
commode  of  mahogany  with  a  white  marble  top 
surrounded  by  a  little  railing  of  gilt  brass,  an 
escritoire  also  in  mahogany,  a  mahogany  bed 
adorned  with  gilt  emblems,  bronzes  by  Ravrio, 
and  an  Aubusson  carpet.  At  the  back  of  the 
alcove,  which  is  sheltered  by  taffeta  curtains 
from  the  rays  of  the  sun,  a  mirror  repeats  the 
decoration  of  the  room,  and  serves  madame  for 
the  beginning  of  her  toilette  the  moment  she 
lifts  her  head  from  her  pillow."  Caillot  might 
have  added,  and  the  picture  would  then  have  been 
complete,  the  great  oval  cheval  glass,  the  washing- 
stand  on  its  three  legs  and  the  meridienne  for 
hours  of  careless  ease.  Can  you  not  see  her  in 
this  old-world  frame,  this  good  bourgeoise  of 
1 8 10,  in  her  night  jacket,  undoing  her  curl-papers 
as  she  waited  for  them  to  bring  her  the  Moniteiir 
dc  V  Empire  J  in  which  she  will  perhaps  learn  of 
the  exploits  of  the  handsome  colonel  of  hussars 
for  whom  her  heart  sighs  in  secret  ? 

And  now  we  have  come  to  the  end  of  these 
little  volumes  on  French  furniture.  We  shall 
not  go  beyond  the  year  18 1 5,  for  the  Empire 
Style  is  verily  the  last  that  is  worthy,  a  youngest 
brother  and  somewhat  weakly,  to  find  a  place  in 


132  EMPIRE    FURNITURE 

the  glorious  family  of  French  styles.  We  have 
for  some  years  now  been  having  dinned  into  our 
ears  a  certain  "  Restoration  Style  "  and  even  a 
"  Louis  Philippe  Style,"  which  our  mania  of  re- 
habilitation has  taken  up  with  enthusiasm,  and 
which  efforts  are  being  made  to  have  pass,  if  not 
for  beautiful  (that  would  be  too  hard)  at  least 
for  amusing.  Everybody  knows  that  this  indul- 
gent adjective  serves  at  the  present  moment  as  a 
password  for  the  most  hideous  atrocities  of  every 
kind,  dresses  or  pictures,  furniture,  wall  papers 
or  theatrical  scenery.  Naturally,  of  course,  certain 
dealers  are  not  backward  in  helping  the  movement 
on ;  they  are  in  hopes  of  repeating  their  master 
stroke  of  some  five-and-twenty  years  ago  when 
Empire  furniture  suddenly  came  into  vogue 
again.  Are  they  beginning  to  find  it  difficult  to 
get  hold  of  choice  pieces  for  a  song  in  order  to 
sell  them  at  a  high  figure,  the  fnerzdtennes^ 
the  flambeauX'boutllotes^  or  the  jardinieres  of 
painted  sheet  iron  of  the  time  of  Josephine  and 
of  Marie  Louise  ?  That's  of  no  consequence ! 
One  fine  day  the  fiat  will  go  forth  that  the 
wretched  so  much  vilified  furniture  of  1820  or 
1840  is  odd,  amusing,  in  short  fashionable  ;  what 
more  do  you  want  ?  Naturally  and  as  a  matter 
of  course,  the  goodly  herd  of  snobs  will  follow 
with  its  customary  touching  docility,  and  begin 
to  pay  royally  for  this  rubbishy  stuff. 

We  will  be  very  careful  not  to  become  in  any 
way,  however  small,  accessory  to  this  wretched 
farce,  which  let  us  hope  will  not  last  for  long. 


DEGENERACY  IN   STYLE    133 

The  case  is  judged  and  well  judged.  The  so- 
called  Restoration  Style  is  not  a  distinct  style,  it 
is  nothing  else,  when  it  is  not  essaying  shapeless 
imitations  of  the  Gothic,  but  a  degenerate  Empire 
Style,  which  keeps  growing  more  and  more  im- 
poverished and  heavy.  As  for  the  Louis  Philippe 
pieces  they  must  keep  their  bad  repute.  Ill 
proportioned,  flabby  and  beggarly  in  lines,  both 
scrimped  and  heavy  at  the  same  time,  as  ill 
constructed  as  they  are  coarsely  carved,  they 
deserve  neither  to  appear  again  in  our  houses  nor 
to  be  imitated  by  novelty  hunters  bitten  with 
paradox  and  empty  of  invention.  Peace  therefore 
to  the  dust  that  covers  them,  and  to  the  worms 
that  are  gnawing  them  away  in  the  depths  of 
provincial  garrets ! 


I 


Fig.  1.    LEAF  OF  A  DOOR 


Fig.  2.    PANEL  OF  CARVED  WOOD 


Fig.  3.    NORMANDY  CUPBOARD  IN  OAK 


Fig.  4.    CUPBOARD  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  EMBLEMS 


Fig.  5.    LARGE  CUPBOARD  FROM  THE  GIRONDE,  HALF-MOON  SHAPED 


Fig.  6. 


MAHOGANY  CUPBOARD  FROM  THE  SOUTH-WEST  OF  FRANCE, 
WITH  MOULDINGS 


Fig.  7.  PROVENCAL  CUPBOARD  IN  WALNUT 


Fig.  8.     CREDENCE  SIDEBOARD  FROM  ARLES,  IN  WALNUT 


Fig.  12.    ETAGERE  FROM  ARLES,  IN  WALNUT 


Fig.  13.    KNEADING  TROUGH  FROM  ARLES,  IN  WALNUT 


Fig.  14.    VITRINE  IN  MAHOGANY  WITH  BRASS  ORNAMENTS 


Fig.  15.    CORNER  CUPBOARD  IN  MARQUETRY  OF  DIFFERENT 
COLOURED  WOODS 


Fig.  16.    DROP  FRONT  ESCRITOIRE  IN  MARQUETRY  WITH 
GILT  BRONZES 


Fig.  17.      BONHEUR  DU  JOUR  WITH  ROLL  FRONT,  IN  MAHOGANY  AND  BRASS 


Fig.  18.    COMMODE  WITH  TWO  DRAWERS  AND  ON  LEGS,  IN  MARQUETRY 


Fig.  19.    COMMODE  WITH  TERMINAL-SHAPED  LEGS  AND  PIERCED  BRASSES, 

IN  WALNUT 


iifim 


i  U  i  M  i   M  i  i  i  (  (   t 


».M 


«KjPS   I 


SM^ 


Fig.  20.    COMMODE  WITH  FLUTINGS,  DIMINISHED  AT  THE  BASE, 
IN  WALNUT 


Fig.  22.  COMMODE  ON  LEGS,  IN  MAHOGANY  VENEER 


Fig.  23. 


COMMODE  WITH  "PIBDS  DB  BICHE,"  IN  ROSEWOOD. 
TULIP- WOOD  AND  LBMON-WOOD 


Fig.  25.    TALL  CHIFFONNIBRB  WITH  TOUPIE  FEET,  IN 
MAHOGANY  AND  BRASS 


O 

O 


ft 

o 
P3 


Fig.  27.    CARD  TABLE  ON  PIVOT,  IN  MAHOGANY 
Fig.  28.    TRIANGULAR  FOLDING  TABLE,  IN  WALNUT 


Fig.  31.    CONSOLE  WITH  TWO  LEGS,  IN  PAINTED  WOOD 


Fig.  32.    CONSOLE  WITH  TWO  LEGS.  IN  WALNUT 


O 

o 


09 

O 
O 


o 

QQ 

o 


Fig.  40.    ARM-CHAIR  OF  PAINTED  WOOD,  UPHOLSTERED  IN 
UTRECHT  VELVET 


1 


Fig.  47.    LARGE  ARM-CHAIR  COVERED  IN  AUBUSSON,  GILT  WOOD 


Fig.  52.    "CONFESSIONAL"  BERGERE,  IN  PAINTED  WOOD 


S  fe  o 


63 
OQ 


o 


.3 


.B^ 


O 

M 

Ah 


OS 

§ 

o 
a 


Fig.  74.    FOUR-POSTER  BED  FROM  LORRAINE,  CARVED  IN  THE 
RENAISSANCE  TflADITION 


Fig.  75.    ANGEL  BED  WITH  "HAT "SHAPED  DOSSIERS,  IN  PAINTED  WOOI 


Fig.  76.    ANGEL  BED  WITH  ARCHED  DOSSIERS,  IN  PAINTED  WOOD 


fSt 


Fig. 


79.  CASE  CLOCK  IN 
OAK,  PARIS 


Fig.  80.  CASE  CLOCK  IN 
OAK  FROM  LORRAINE 


Q 
O 
O 


s 

^W'                                                 ■* 

^'IH^_" 

M 

Q 

Q 
> 

o 

a 


O 


Fig.  84.    CUPBOARD,  FROM  THE  GIRONDB,  IN  WALNUT 
(BEGINNING  OF  THE  STYLE) 


Fig.  85.    DROP  FRONT  ESCRITOIRE  IN  MAHOGANY  WITH  BRASS  INLAY 
(BEGINNING  OF  THE  STYLE) 


Fig.  86.    BONHEUR  DU  JOUR  IN  MAHOGANY  WITH  FLAT-GILT 
BRONZE  ORNAMENTS 


is 


O 
Q 

12; 

-si 

o 
o 


02 
M 


o 

o 


Fig.  90.    SLOPE-FRONTED  BUREAU  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  EMBLEM 


'  ■'Stefii  ■ 


^^^^mm^m^s^i^... 


I 


OH 

ace 

^o 
go 
3s 

§^ 

^g 


2 


INDEX-GLOSSARY 


Acanthus  leaf  in  ornament,  48 

"  Accotoirs,"  69 

Alembert,  d',  41 

Allegorical       furniture      after 

Egyptian  cam©aign,  29 
Amateur  {V\  comedy,  9 
"American  bureau,"  the,  66 
"Angel  bed "  [see  "Lit  d*ange  ") 
Antilles,  woods  from  the,  49 
An  tin,  Capucins  d*,  convent  of,  17 
Antiquity,  Greco-Roman,  influ- 
ence on  style  of  furniture,  1-4, 
39,  40,  86 
sacred  character  of,  95-96 
Antoinette,  Marie,  escritoire  and 
commode  of,  by  Riesner,  li 
boudoir   at   Foatainebleau, 

17,49 
.  chair  of,  74 
jewel  cupboard  by  Schwerd- 
feger,  19 
Arabesques,  48-49 
Aranjuez,  34 
Arcade,  Rue  de  1*,  17 
"Arcatures  (a),*'  73 
Architecture,  the  Greek  manner 
in,  5,  6,  17 
Louis  XVI  Style  in,  78,  79 
Areola,  28 

Aries,  buffets  from,  86-87 
Arm-chairs    of    the    transition 
period,  9,  10 
antique,  of  the  Revolution- 
ary period,  23 
Empire  Style,  103 
Armoires,  Louis    XV  Style  in 
the  provinces,  52 
Empire  Style,  1 15 
from  the  Gironde,  53,  54 
from  Provence,  54 
"  taking  of  the  Bastille,"  53 
Arthur,  paper-maker,  79 


Artois,     Comte     d*,     sleeping 

chamber  of,  18 
"  Asperge,**  46 

Assembly,  the  Constituent,  21 
"  Atheniennes,"  20,  50,  64 
Aubert,  designer,  20 
Aubusson,  carpets,  13 1 
Avril,  Etienne,  13,  19 

BachaUMONT,  Mcmoires  Secrets, 

9 

Backs  of  chairs,  70-71 

Bagatelle,  style,  17 

"Balustres,"  47 

Barras,  influence,  26 

Barry,  Madame  du,  37 

Barthe,  N.  T.,  9 

Barthelemy,    Abbe,    Voyage   du 

Jeune  Anacharsis^  15 
Bas-reliefs,  97 
Bastille,    taking    of    the,    "ar- 

moire,**  53 
Beauharnais,  Hotel  de,  98  and 

note 
Beauvais  tapestry,  28 
Bedroom,  furnishing  the,  87-89 

an  "Empire,"  1 30-3 1 
Beds,  Louis  XVI  Style,  75 

boat,  122-23 

Empire  Style,  121 

the  "lit  d'ange,"  75-76,  88, 

121 

Bellange,  28 
Bellicard,  see  Cochin 
Bellona,  29 
Benedictines,  the,  5 
Beneman,  Guillaume,  19 
Bergeres,  popularity,  71-72 
Berthaud,  upholsterer,  28 
Boat  beds,  122,  123 
"  Bonheur  du  jour,"  56,  66,  82, 
I 16-17 


135 


136 


INDEX-GLOSSARY 


*'  Bonnetieres/'  89 
Bookcase  bureau,  120 
Bosio,  Jean,  24 
Boucassin,  90 
Boucher,  Sieur,  21-22 
Boudins,  45 
Boudon-Goubeau,  III 
Bouillotte,  game  of,  63 
Boulle,  Andre-Charles,  19 
"  Bout  de  bureau,"  65 
Brass  inlay,  13,  50-51 

gilded,  56 

leg  ornaments,  61 

pierced  brass,  55 
Breakfast  table,  the,  64 
Brimborions,  44 
Brongniart,  works,  17,  1 8 
Bronze,  artists  in,  44 
Bronzes,  the  "  ancient,*'  9 

Empire,  107-8 
Brosses,  President  de,  I.ctb  es,  3, 4 
Brown,  "  Etruscan,*'  23 
Brumaire,  coup  d'etat  of,  31 
Brun  (Le),  16 
"  Bucranes,"  48 
Buffet,  a  "  Normandy,"  86-87 
"  Buffet-credence,"  87 
Buffets,  style  in  the  provinces,  52 
"Buffets-Vaisseliers,"  90 
Buonaparte,   General,  mansion, 

28-29 
Bureau-ministre,  65-66,  120 
"  Bureaux  a  dessus  brise,"  120 
"Bureaux  de  dames,"  112 
Bureaux,  Louis  XVI  Style,  65-66 

1 8th  century,  120 
Burette,  95 

Cabinet-makers  of  Louis  XVI, 

10,  18-19 
"Cabinet"  mounted  on  legs,  17th 

century,  57 
"  Cabriolet  (en),"  70 
Caffieri,  bronzes,  45 
Caillot,  Mcmoires  quo  ted,  79-82, 

85,  87,  89,  131 
"  Camaieux,"  17 
'•Canapes,"  74-75 
*'  Canaux,"  46 


Cane-seated  chairs,  72-73 

"Cannelures,"  46 

Canova,  33 

"  Capital,"  the,  in  ornament,  47 

Card-tables,  Louis  XVI,  63 

Carlin,  Martin,  12,  19,  95 

Carnavalet  Museum,  53 

"  Carre  aux,"  72 

Caryatides,  20,  47,  56,  106-107 

Cased  clocks,  89-90 

"Cassolette,'*  118 

Castors,  use  of,  61 

"Cathedra,''  20 

Caylus,  Comte  de,  3,  4 

Cellerier,  17 

Ceramics,  Greco-Etruscan,  15 

Cerceau,  A.,  2 

Chairs,  Louis  XVI,  68-71 

a  la  capucine,  72  and  note 

backs  of,  70-74 

"canapes,"  74-75 

cane-seated,  72-73 

"consoles  montantes,"  70 

"  consoles  reculees,"  69-70 

coverings  for,  81 

dining-room,  87 

Empire,  123-27 

"  en  cabriolet,"  70 

lyre-backed,  74 

mahogany,  72 

straw,  72-74 

the"bergere,"  71-72 
"Chaise-longue,"    the,    75,     88, 

126-27 
Chalgrin,  works  of,  17 
"Chandelle,"46 
Chanterine,  Rue,  17-18,  28 
"Chapiteau,"  the,  77-78 
"Chaplets"  of  olives,  etc.,  46 
Chateaubriand,  16 
Chenier,  Andre,  poems,  16 
Cherry-wood,  use,  74 
Chiffonnieres.  60,  64,  1 18 
Chimney-pieces,  Louis  XVI 

Style,  79 
Chinese  lacquer  panels,  12 

papers,  77 

trinkets,  86 
"Chinoise  (a  la)'*  bed,  75 


INDEX-GLOSSARY         137 


Choiseul-Gouffier,     Grece-Pittor^ 

esq  lie,  14 
"Chutes,"  47, 49,  56     ,,    ^ 
"  Chutes  de  guirlandes,    48 
Clocks,  ornamental,  16 
cased,  89-90 
Louis  XVI  Style,  77 
Cochin,  3 

article  in  the  Mercure,  6-9 
Bellicard    and,  Observation 
siir  Us  antiquitcs  d*  Heretic 
lanum,  4-5 
"Coin,"  the,  55 
Colours,  light,  vogue  of,  79 

for  drawing  rooms,  80-8 1 
"Column,'*  the,  use  in  ornament, 

46-47 
"Commode     ouverte     a     Van- 

glaise,"  59  ,    .  ,  „  ^ 

"Commodes  a  dessusbrise,    60 
Commodes  "  en  console,"  58 
Commodes    of    the    transition 
period,  10 

construction,  58-59 

faults  in  decoration,  59-60 

Louis  XVI,  57-58 

Provengal,  58 

the  half-moon,  59 
Compiegne,  34 
Conciergerie,  the,  74 
Condillac,  41 
Condorcet,  Lycee,  17 
''Confidents,"  75 
Console  pier  glass,  59 
Console,  the,  47 

Empire  Style,  I18-19 

Louis  XVI  Style,  62-63 
"Console-commode,"  II9 
"Consoles  d'  accotoirs,"  70 
"Consoles  montantes,"  70 
"Consoles  reculees,"  69-70 
Convention,  furniture  for  the,  25 
"Corbeil  de  vannerie,"  72 
Corinthian  style,  109 
"Cotes,"  46 

Country  house  furnishing,  89 
Cressent,  95 

Cupboards,  Louis  XVI,  52-54 
corner,  55-56 


Curule  chairs,  20 
DarTHENAY,  memoir  6  historiqu€, 

4 
David,    F.    A.    {see    Marechal, 

Sylvain) 
David,  Jacques  Louis,  influence,  6 
Beiisarttis,  16 
canvases  of,  99 
his  antique  pieces,  24 
Napoleon  and,  31 
Oath  of  the  Horatii,  16 
on  ornamentation,  42 
portrait  of  Mme.  Recamier, 

127 
studio,  130 
Decoration,   internal,  end  1 8th 

century,  17 
Deffand,  Marquise  du,  38 
Delacroix,  quoted,  40 
Delorme,  Philibert,  2 
"Denticules,"45 
Designers,  furniture,  20 
Desmalter,  Jacob,  work  of,  25, 

29,  33,  95,  112 
Diderot,  5,  38,  39- 
Dining-room,      furnishing    the, 

86.87 
Dining-tables,  extending,  62 
"Diphros,"  chair,  97 
Directoire  Style,   17,   26-27,  69 

and  note,  II5 
Dolphins,  48 

"  Don  d'Amitie,"  inscription,  45 
Doric  frieze,  47 

style  in  brasses,  109 
"Dossiers,'*  76 
"  Dossiers  en  chapeau,"  71 
**  Doucine,"  lOO 

Drawing-room,  the  walls,  79-80 
furniture,  Caillot,gw(>^^^,  81- 

82 
knick-knacks,  85-86 
mixing  of  styles,  82-84 
Dresden  ornaments,  81,  85 
Duchesses,  75,  88 
Dugourc,  designer,  20 

Ebony,  disuse  and  re-appearance 
of,  49-50 


13 


8 


INDEX-GLOSSARY 


1 


Egyptomania,  15,  29,  108-9 
Elastiques,  a,  style  of  upholstery, 

126 
Elysee,  the,  34 

Empire  furniture,  history  of  the 
style,  1-2,  9-10,  19 

bronzes,  107-8 

characteristics,  93-100 

colours  used,  84-85 

development  of  the,  2®-2I, 
26,  30-34 

ornaments,  108- lO 

technique,  100-107 
"Entrelacs,''  9,  45,  62 
"  Entrelacs  a  rosaces,"  56 
Escritoire,  the  large  drop-front, 
56 

Empire  Style,  116 
Escurial,  34 
Etruscan  brown,  23 

goblets,  28 
'*Evoe,"  28 

Federation,  day  of  the,  22 

beds  a  la,  121 
''Feuilles  d'acanthe,"  45 
"  Feuilles  d'eau,"  45 
Flat  gilding,  45,  III 
"Fleuron,"  1 26 
"  Fleurs  de  Vincennes,"  65 
Flower-tables,  120-121 
Flutings  of  marquetry,  46-47 
Fontaine,  Pierre,    and   Charles 
Percier,  art  of,  2,  18,  25,  28, 

31-34 
allegorical  pieces,  30 
designs    for    flower-tables, 

I20-I2I 
Egyptian  pieces,  29 
influence    on    the    art    of 

furnishing,  93-96 
on  compromise,  97-98 
on  the  new  mouldings,  II4 
use  of  new  lines,  99-IOI,  103 
Fontainebleau,  boudoir  of  Marie 
Antoinette,  17,  49 

furniture  in  style  of  Louis 

XIV,  18 
Napoleon's  throne,  112 


Fontainebleau,  work  of  Beneman, 

19 
Four-poster  bed,  75 
Francois  I,  2 
French  decorative  art,  Egyptian 

architecture  in,  15 

Gabriel,  architect,  59 
Garde-Meubles,  palace,  fagades, 

11,59 
Gardeur,  discovery,  114 
Giovanni  of  Udine,  49 
Gironde,  armoire  from,  53 
"Godrons,"45 
Goncourt  Bros.,  eitcdy  21 
Gouthiere,  45,  III 
"Gouttes/'47,  56 
"Grands  fagonnes,"  1 29 
Greco-Etruscan  ceramics,  15 
Greco-Roman  motifs^  108-9 
"  Greek  manner,''  articles  in  the, 

3,  5-9,  69,  77 
fashions  under  the  Empire, 

I17-18 
influence  at  time  of  Revolu- 
tion, 21 
monumental  architecture,  17 
Greeks,  furniture  of  the,  96-98 
Greuze,  39 
Grimm,  Diderot  and,  Corresponds 

cncc  litter  air  Cf  7 
Grotesques,  48 
Gueridon,  the,  64,  II 7-1 8 
Guilds,  suppressed  by  the  Revo- 
lution, 25-26 

Hamilton     collection,     some 

gems,  II,  15 
Hancarville,  15 
Handles,  "  drop,"  of  Louis  XVI 

epoch,  57-58 
"  Haricots,"  ornament,  54 
'*  Hat  "  design,  the,  71,  73,  76 
Hellenic  art,  Roman,  and,  15 
Herculaneum,  discovery,  4 
book  on,  4-5 
style,  20 
Hervieux,  Mile,  d',  mansion  of, 

17-18 


INDEX. GLOSSARY 


130 


Homer,  influence  seen  in  salon 

of  1785,  16,  17 
"Horse-shoe"  back,  73 
Hopital,  Marquis  de  T,  Mcmoirc 

hisioriqnc,  4 
Howard,  Henry,  1 12 

*'  IMPERIALE  (a  rV'beds,  75 
Indian  ornaments,  86 
Inlay  work,  13,  1 12 
Inscriptions,  Academie  des,  3,  5 
Interiors  of  the  Republic,  28 
Ionic  capital,  use,  47 
Italian  tour,  fashion  of  the,  3 
'*  Italienne  (a  1'),"  beds,  75 

Jacob,  Georges,  24,  25, 113, 124 

Jacquart  loom,  the,  129 

Japanese  trinkets,  86 

Jardiniere,  the,  65 

Joiners,  guild  of,  50,  73 

Jones,  46 

Josephine,   restoration  of  Mal- 

maison,  31,  132 
Jottes  pleincs,  71 
Journal  tie  la  Mode  et  du  Gout, 

21,23 
Jouy  linen,  88 

Kaufmann,  Angelica,  33 
Keyholes,  Louis  XVI  Style,  55, 

56,58 
Kneading-trough,  the,  87 
Knick-knacks,  popularity,  85-86 
Knitting,  the  rage  for,  64 

Lacquer,  the  Martin,  49 
Lalonde,  designer,  20 
**  Lampas,"  129 
"Lanternes,"  81  note 
Lassalle,  Philippe  de,  80 
**  Lavabo,"  the,  119-20 
Ledoux,  2 

Legion  of  Honour,  Palace  of,  17 
Legs,  characteristic,  60-61 

bed,  76 

chair,  68,  69 
Leleu,  13,  19 
Lepalisse,  M.  de,  cited,  93 


Leroy,  3 

Lescott,  Pierre,  2 
Levasseur,  18 
Lignereux,  95 

Lines  of  construction,  transform- 
ation in,  9-10 
"  Listel,"  160 

"  Lit  d'ange,'*  75-76,  88,  121 
Literature,  the  antique  in,  15-16 
Livy,  influence  seen  in  salon  of 

1785, 16-17 
Louis  XII,  2 

Louis  XIV  Style,  copied  by 
cabinet-makers  of  Louis  XVI, 
18-21,  37 

bureaux,  66 

colour,  84-85 

ornaments,  45 
Louis  XV  Style,  decay  of,  I-3 

a  drawing-room,  82 

a  "  Louis  Quinze,' '  by  Riese- 
ner,  10 

armoires,  54,  76 

basket-shaped  ottomans,  74 

beds,  75 

bronzes,  107 

bureau  in  the  Louvre,  il 

card-tables,  63 

character,  5-9,37,73,89,115 
note 

commodes,  57,  60 

form,  21 

marquetry,  13 

motifs  J  49 

mouldings,  1 1,  43 

ornaments,  45,  54 

style  of  clocks,  y/ 

tables,  61-62    ^ 
Louis  XVI,  taste  for  the  antique 
under,  14 

society  of  the  age,  37-40 
Louis  XVI  Style,  history,  1-2,  9, 
10,21 

armoires,  54 

beauty  of  the  pieces,  43-44 

beds,  75 

characteristics,  II-I2,  37-40, 

115 
colour,  84-85 


140        INDEX-GLOSSARY 


Louis  Xyi  Style,  commodes,  S7 

definition  of  surfaces,  42 

difference  from  Louis  XV 
Style,  83-84 

escritoires,  1 16 

lines,  99-100,  III 

motifs,  45-49,  54 

moulding,  43 

non-development  in  the  pro- 
vinces, 52 

ornamentation,  44-46 

pieces    with    revolutionary 
emblems,  21 

principle    of    the    straight 
line,  40-42 

tapestries,  80 
Louis-Phillipe,    fashions  under, 

84-85,  132-33 
Louveciennes,  pavilion  of,  37 
Louvre,  the,   bureau    of  Louis 
XV,  II 

restoration,  31 

sample  of  Beneman,  19 
'*  Lumiere  (bras  de),"  81  note 
Lyons,  looms  of,  80 
Lyre,  the,  motif,  72 

lyre-backs,  73-74 

Mahogany,  vogue  of,  49-50, 

72,  III 
'*  Mains,"  Louis  XVI,  pendantes, 

57-58 
fixes,  58 
Malmaison,  restoration,  31,  34 
Manchettes,  69 
Marat,   Ami  du  Peuple,  quoted, 

25-26 
Marechal,  Sylvian,  F.  A.  David 

and,  A  ntiquitcs  d*Herculamim,^ 
Marguerite,  the,  in  ornament,  69 
Marie-Louise,  132 
Marquetry,  Roentgen  and,  13-14 
flutings  of,  46-47 
for  escritoires,  56 
Marquise,  the,  82 
Mars,  Champ  de,  the  triumphal 

arch,  22 
Marseilles,  90 
Martin  lacquer,  the,  49 


'^Mascarons,*' 49 
Mercure  de  France,  the  "  Suppli- 
cation,'* 6-7 
"  Meridiennes,*'  127 
Merveilleuses,  the,  27-28 
Mesengere,     La,      Journal    des 

Modes  et  des  Dames,  27 
Meslay,  or  Meslee,  Rue,  25 
Metal  ornaments  on  seats,  I12-13 
"  Militaire  (a  la),"  bed,  75 
Mirrors,  small,  yy,  78 

movable,  I19-120 
Modillions,  54 
Montesquieu,  15-16 
"  Montgolfiere  (en),"  72 
Montigny,  18 
Moreau,  24 

Mosaics  of  Florence,  14 
*'  Motifs,"  ornamental,  46-47 

antique,  52 

Louis  XVI,  54 

the  drapery,  58 
Mouldings,  beaded,  II-I2 

atrophied,  under  the  Empire, 

lOO-IOI 

Louis  XVI  Style,  43 
"  Moyenne,"  the,  77-78 

Napoleon,  First  Consul,  30-31 
throne  at  Fontainebleau,  Ii2 

Neuwied,  13 

Normandy  cupboards,  52-54 
buffets,  86-87 

Nouveaux    Riches    after    1795, 
26-27 

Oberkampf,  88 
Odiot,  22 

Oeben,  works  of,  10,  II,  27,  95 
Ornaments,    Louis  XVI  Style, 
44-49 
Empire  Style,  108-II0 
Osmont,  Hotel  d*,  17 
Ottomans,  74-75 
"Oves,"45 

"Paduasoy,"  129 
"  Paestum  Style,"  17 
Painting,  the  antique  in,  16-17 


INDEX. GLOSSARY 


141 


Panels,  definition  of,  42-43 
"  Panurge  (a  la),"  75 
"Papiers  des  Indes,'*  ^^ 
"Patisseries,"  79 
Faul  et  Virgifiic,  16 
Pediments,  mirror,  77-7^ 
Peinture  et  de  Sculpture,  Aca- 

demie  de,  3 
"  Petit  Dunkerque,"  the,  44 
Percier,   Charles  {see  Fontaine, 

Pierre) 
Pianoforte,  the,  129 
"Pieds  de  biche,"  9,  20,  48,  57, 

58,  60,  62 
"  Pieds  en  carquois,"  6 1 
"Pieds  en  gaine,"  60 
"Pilastres,"47 
Piranesi,  14- 15 

"Polonaise  (a* la),"  beds,  75-76 
Pompadour,  Mme.  de,  3,  5,  37 
Pompeii   excavations,  influence 

on  taste  of  the  time,  4,  24,  40, 

64,86 
Porcelain  plaques,  50 
Printed  linens,  90 
Provence,  armoires  from,  54 

commodes  from,  58 
Provincial      workshops,      work 

during  the  Revolution,  22 
Pyrenees,  buffet  from,  90  note 

"Quart  de  rond,"  100 
Quinquet,  lamps  of,  130 

"  Rais  de  cceur,"  45 
"  Rang  de  feuilles,"  69 
"  Rang  de  perles,"  69 
"Rangs  de  piastres,"  9,  45-46,  69 
"  Rangs  de  Sapeques,"  46 
Rascalon,  95 

Ravrio,  bronzes  by,  108,  J  31 
Recamier,    Mme.,    portrait    by 
David,  24,  127 

decoration  of  her  house,  28 
Rccucil  d*  antiqnitcs,  etc.,  3 
Regency,  style  of  the,  21,  69-70 
Rempart,  Rue  Basse  du,  17 
Renaissance,  the  first  French,  2 

influence  on  style  of  orna- 
ment, 48-49 


Republic,  style  of  the,  24 
interiors  of  the,  28 
turners  under  the,  100 
Restoration  Style,  34,  132-33 
Reveillon,  papers  made  by,  79-80, 

88 
Revolutionary  period,  style,  19, 
21,115 
chairs,  125 
pieces  of  the,  83-84 
symbols    on     Louis      XVI 
pieces,  21-22,  58 
Ribbons,  knots  of,  14,  49 
Riesener,  Jean  Henri,  lO-ll,  19, 

27,  43,  95 
"  Rinceaux,"  17,  19,  20,  45,  47, 

48,  54,  124 
Rivoli,  28 
"Rocaille,"  6 
Rococo  Style,  54 
Roederer,    he  OpuscuIeSf  quoted, 

103-5 
Roentgen,  David,  marquetry  of, 

13-14 
Roman    architecture,    influence 

on  the  Louis  XVI  Style,  40, 43 
Romans,  furniture  of  the,  96-98 
Rondin,  103 
Rosace,  ornament,  23,  43,  45,  69, 

108 
Rousseau,  38,  65 

construction  of  the  Hotel  de 

Salm,  17 
love  of  antiquity,  5 
Royal  e.  Rue,  60 
*'  Rubans  enroules,"  45 
*'Rudente,"  46 
Rtdnes  des  plus  beaux  momimcnts 

de  la  Grece,  3 

Saint-Antoine,  Faubourg, 

cabinet  makers,  22 
Saint-Cloud,  restoration,  31,  34 
Salm,  Hotel  de,  17 
Salon  of  1785,  16-17 
*'  Salons  de  oompagnie,"  82 
Saunier,  Claude  C,  13,  19 
Schwerdfeger,  19 
Screens,  76-77 


142         INDEX-GLOSSARY 


Seats,  Empire,  122-23 
**  Secretaire  a  abattant/'  56 
**  Secretaires-commodes,"  60 
Severin,  cabinet-maker,  18 
Sevres  china,  popularity,  50 
plaques,  56,  65,  HI 
*  *' Sheaf  "back,  73 
Skirts  of  the  Regency,  69-70 
Sofa  a  le  Pommier,  127 
Sofas,  Empire,  126-27 
Soubise,  Hotel  de,  17 
Soufflot,  2,  3 
Soupiere,  I2I,  124 
Straw  chairs,  72-74,  126 
Symbols,      Revolutionary,     on 

Louis  XVI  pieces,  21-22 
Symmetry  in  Empire  Style,  1 02-3 

"  Table  a  fleurs,"  65 

"Table  de  nuit,*' 67 

Tableaux   tires  cV  Homere   et  de 

Virtue,  3-4 
"Table-bouillotte,"63 
"Table-coiffeuse,"  the,  1 19-20 
Tables,  crooked-legged,  9 

a  Tanglaise,  62 

card,  63 

consoles,  62-63 

Empire,  117-18 

legs  of,  60-61 

Louis  XVI  small,  62-64 

the  cross-piece,  61-62 

the  frame,  62 

writing,  65-66 
"  Tables-dessertes,"  86 
"Tabliers,"47 
Talma,  28 
"Termes,"  II8 
"  Tete  du  pied,"  61 
Thomire,  bronzes,  108 
Thorwaldsen,  33 
Toilet  arm-chairs,  72 
Toilet  tables,  Louis  XVI,  63-64 
"Toilette,"  l8th  century,  119 


"Tombeau,  (ala),"bed,  75 
"Tores,"  45 

"Toupies,"55 
"Transition"  pieces,  52 
"Tricoteuse,"  the,  64 
Triglyphs,  47,  56 
Trinkets,  the  Greek  manner  in,  ( 

popularity  of,  85-86 
Tuileries,  restoration,  31 
Turkey  carpets,  129 
Turners,  guild  of,  50,  73 
"Turque  (a  la),"  bed,  75 
Tuscan  order,  the,  I09 
Twin  beds,  88 

Vanderbilt  collection,  the,  11 

Vandieres,  Marquis  de,  3 

*'  Various  ways  of  ornamentini 

chimney  pieces,*'  15 
Vatican  Loggias,  arabesques,  49 
Vendome  Column,  29  note 
Versailles,  18 
Vigee-Lebrun,  Mme.,  Souvenirs 

cited,  27-28 
style,  65 
Vitrine,  the,  55-56 
Vitruvius,  5 
Vivant-Denon,  savant,  29 

Wallace  Collection,  19 
Wall-hangings,  Empire,  128-29 
Wall-papers,  80 
Walpole,  Horace,  38 
Wedgwood,  bas-reliefs,  50 

plaques,  ]I2 
Weisweiler,  Adam,  20,  5 1 
Winckelmann,  J.,  14 
Windsor   Castle,    redecoration 

34»  112 
Woods,  used  under  the  Empire 

III 
Writing  tables,  65-66 

X-shaped  stools,  20 


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